February 2025
Reach Church is a recent church plant over in East Troy, Wisconsin that will be launching in the Fall of this year, 2025. Stuart and Melissa McPherson and their loving family of 3 kids and 2 Australian Shepherds have had quite a journey to their current location. “Being obedient and patient as God has worked in our lives,” McPherson said when asked about the path to church planting.
His emphasis on giving it to the Lord and waiting, even sometimes in what seemed like a lonely season, ultimately led him and his family to do something about the call they received. From New Mexico to Colorado, then Connecticut, and now Wisconsin, God has worked in their lives and the communities around them to move The Kingdom.
Through affirmations in partnership with Stuart’s friend Marcus and financial help from cold calling those he and his family had relationships with, Reach Church is now less than a year away from a launch that Stuart had previously thought maybe wasn’t going to happen, at least not in the way that it has now. Stuart said, “We knew that God had made something and had an endpoint and a plan in mind for our church plant. We just had to catch up to what the Lord had already set up for us.”
McPherson states, “A sending church is one of the biggest ways to gain support because church planting can be difficult in the beginning.” He credits God and the communities surrounding and lifting up him and his family, including StoryHill Church in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. He says, “This is something (called to church plant) we started 8 years ago, and Reach Church is where we want people to feel Jesus even before they come to our first Sunday service.”
He suggests that people keep their faith and do this through prayer and jumping when God says to. Stuart says, The Freeds (John and Danielle) have been a support system. “They help us see that comparison (of church plants and churches) is from the enemy”. The comparison he felt when he looked at other churches made him doubt his and his community’s accomplishments.
He reiterated that those comparisons were from the enemy and that “The level of progress is not set by you comparing to others but rather by God. We try to get to the level that furthers His Kingdom; if we have done that, we have done what God is using us for.” Stuart ended by describing how important community is to Reach Church and how he hopes the meetings, information sessions, and overall support can impact those in and around Reach.
He said,
“If we reach the lost and they come to know Christ, then we know we have done exactly what God
called us to do many years ago.”
Comentarios