A) In 2012, Eastridge launched the Jackson Lake Campus (JLC...later named "South Campus"), with the intention of it being a multi-site campus of Eastridge Church.

B) Gary Thompson was sent as the Campus Pastor of JLC. However, unlike with traditional multi-site churches, Gary would also preach at this campus, live (most multi-sites have 1 preacher on a video screen at satellite campuses).

C) Consultants told us that having a live preacher would inevitably lead to this campus becoming an autonomous church within 5 years. It's just natural! Instead of having a central leader that is preaching and casting vision for every campus, that campus had it's own leader and preacher.

D) The multi-site model worked well like this for about 10 years (at great testimony of God's faithfulness, and the strong leadership of Scott Moore and Trey Bailey).

E) In the fall of 2022, with God's leading, Scott Moore stepped in to lead Celebrate Recovery - CR - (after Brad and Renee Rutledge left to plant a new church), and asked me to become the Campus Pastor of the East Campus. I agreed. During this time, Scott also realized the difficulty of being both "Lead Pastor" of 2 campuses and the pastor of Celebrate Recovery. Therefore, he decided (wisely) to give his attention to Celebrate Recovery, as it's pastor.

F) Now, we had 2 "Campus Pastors" leading 2 different campuses, with no Lead Pastor leading the entire multi-site Church. Of course, Trey Bailey has always done an awesome job as our "Executive Pastor," and he certainly did what he could to help both campuses continue to function as one Church, even without Scott as the Lead Pastor any longer. However, over time, it simply became clear that the multi-site model was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain, with our current structure and leadership. Again, nothing "bad" had happened. Actually, quite the contrary! We were seeing God bear wonderful fruit on BOTH campuses, even though they were becoming less and less identical in their ministry approaches.

G) Around that time, we began to seek the Lord together (both campuses), to see if God was, in fact, leading Eastridge into a new season and a new direction. During that time, we came to the realization that both churches were not only bearing godly fruit, but were also financially capable of continuing to do so as independent churches. 

H) Fast forward to May of 2024. After a year and a half of monthly meetings, heavy conversations, and prayers upon prayers (and all the while, seeing how God was clearly leading His church in new ways and bearing fruit like we haven't seen in many years), every single pastor and elder of Eastridge Church agreed: God has planted a new Church in South Newton County!

I) Now, here we are! We're simply walking with the Lord and trusting Him as He leads us forward. We are working, now, to help the South Campus roll off as it's own, independent, church. We aim to hit the ground running by January of 2025 as Eastridge Church and continuing to celebrate what God is doing at Life Now Church, as well!

As you can imagine there are many things that need to happen in order for South Campus to begin under a new independent church. Right now with the help of the Central Team led by Pastor Trey Bailey, processes have begun. Basically the Central Team has been tasked with making this transition as seamless as possible. You may start to see new signage, logos, print material and new contact information over the next few months. You can expect the transition to be mostly complete by Jan 1st 2025.

As our Eastridge Family, we trust you to simply speak the truth and let it be known that Eastridge is not "splitting up." Instead, Eastridge is celebrating that God has planted a church through us, and that He is leading us to continue following Him into a new season of ministry! Be praying for a smooth transition and for further ministry at both churches.

The simple answer is: Nothing is changing! We love CR, and it will remain a ministry of Eastridge, with the CR staff being Eastridge Staff. Pastor Scott will remain the CR pastor for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, Life Now Church is committed to still supporting CR both financially and with many of it's members being on the leadership team.

Obviously, God pretty abruptly changed our plans in 2020, for planting a church in North Newton. However, we know that many of you gave your time, prayers, and money to that vision (so did I!). As we continue to pray about how to best use those funds, we can promise you this: We will communicate with you before anything is decided upon. Most likely, we will come up with some options for how to use that money, and present those options to our members, for their consideration. We do still have a heart for church planting! If the Lord leads us in to start another new work in the future, we will certainly follow His leading. And hopefully, we can find a way to use the North Newton funds to go toward some sort of new church work, too!)

If you have further questions about your personal pledge and donation, please contact us.