Orlando is the City and the Time is Now
Orlando is Changing
When I was a kid, I thought people only came to Orlando for two reasons: 1) Disney and 2) retirement. I remember when my parents pitched the idea to move us from NYC to Orlando and I begged them not to. I literally said, “Please no! That’s where old people go to die and I have so much life left to live”. The drama, am I right? While I think there was validity to the thoughts of my younger self, the Orlando of the past is not the Orlando of today. Yes, Magic Kingdom and all its pixie dust still stands strong, but the city of Orlando is rapidly changing.
Over the last decade, Orlando has begun to mirror other major metropolitan cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, and New York City. This is evident in the shift in population demographics, political leanings, and city infrastructure. Orlando isn’t getting a paint job, it’s morphing into a whole new place altogether. A major reason for the shift in Orlando is due to the population explosion. Orlando is the nation’s 2nd fastest growing metro, and the City Beautiful is now younger and more ethnically diverse. The local city government has taken notice of this change and is actively committed to investing in the development and culture of the city. Change isn’t coming; it’s here.
Orlando is Hurting
The growth of any city comes with new and fun things to partake in, but the growth of a city also comes with city problems. Orlando has a poverty issue that is being exacerbated by the growth of the city. 14.2% of Orlando residents live in poverty and almost 200,000 Orlando residents are experiencing food insecurity. These issues will not be erased by beautifying a city, but it will only make it more evident.
There are also growing social tensions within the city. There are racial tensions that link back to events during the early days of Orlando that are impacting our city today. And with Orlando being ranked among the top 10 largest LGBTQIA+ in the nation, people on both sides of the conversation struggle deeply to find any common ground.
Orlando Needs Churches
As I think about Orlando, I’m reminded of God’s words to the prophet, Jonah. As the story of Jonah comes to a close, God leaves the readers with these final words, “And should I also not have compassion on Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” (Jonah 4:11). Orlando, like Nineveh, is full of people who are hurting and are blind to the beauty and power of Jesus. And how does God feel about the great city of Orlando where there are certainly more than 120,000 people present? There is one overwhelming reality. God loves this city. As Jonah puts it, God is a “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2).
God is doing a work in this city and He’s calling people to join Him in bringing renewal to our city. And this is where our church plant joins in on the story.
Orlando is Our City
I was born and raised in NYC and even though my parents were Christian, I didn’t come to faith in Jesus until college. Soon after coming to faith, I felt called to pastoral ministry, but I didn’t know what that looked like. I didn’t even want to be a pastor! And then during my senior year, I felt called to church planting, and I definitely didn’t know what that meant because up to that point, I just assumed churches just existed. Who starts a church? It seems that the answer is “people who are called to plant churches”.
After college, God brought me to Orlando, the one place I never thought I would live. You can imagine the cultural shock going from NYC to Orlando. Little did I know that coming to Jesus in NYC would prepare me so well to pastor people in Orlando today. Knowing that God was calling me to church plant, I would ask every year, “God, is this the time?” Every year the response was “Not yet. Wait on Me”. If you know me, you’ll know that’s the last thing I wanted to hear. But this last decade of waiting on the Lord was necessary to shape and prepare me for church planting.
Over the last few years, Rachel and I sensed that God wasn’t saying “not yet” anymore and so we began to ask Him, “when and where?”. We wanted God to place a burden on our hearts for the city we’d plant in. We also didn’t want to make this decision alone, so we invited other mentors and leaders into this journey to help determine if we were hearing God correctly. After much prayer and discernment, God made it abundantly clear that Orlando is where He’s sending us and that the time to plant is now.