Thank you for taking the time to read these updates from our church planters. I think you’ll be encouraged by how the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing (Colossians 1:5-6) all across Florida. As you read, take time to pray for them. The work is hard. But, our great God is faithful.
You are hearing from four church planters for the first time in this newsletter.
Steve Jeantet is planting New Creation church in the Skye Ranch area of Sarasota.
Stephen King is planting Tampa City PCA in downtown Tampa.
James Drake is planting Christchurch in Miami.
Chris Brock is replanting Coastal PCA in Jacksonville Beach.
Each of their stories is a testament to God’s grace to his people. Jesus is indeed building his church.
Thank you for your continued support of the Florida Church Planting Network (FCPN).
Gratefully.
Drew Bennett | Executive Director
1410 Dundee Road
Winter Haven, FL 33884
(863) 298-9849 - work
(863) 286-2310 - cell
drew@redeemerwinterhaven.org
SEVEN RIVERS THE VILLAGES
THE VILLAGES | Stephen Speaks
LAUNCHED: 2021
We are in process of training our first group of elders. We have three great candidates and will finish training in December 2025. We are also moving towards particularization early in 2026.
We had to change our worship location this year because of policy changes at our old location. We started meeting at Silo Oaks, which was formerly a rustic wedding venue. It is a bit out of the way for our members and visitors, but all agree that it is a beautiful location. New visitors have joined us for worship and have found a church home with us.
We are in conversations with the Villages about buying property in the next 2 years and are exploring the reality of entering into a capital campaign after particularization.
Please pray with us:
Particularization
New Elders
Continued Outreach and Growth
Funding for purchase of property & Building
KISSIMMEE FELLOWSHIP
KISSIMMEE | Heath Zuniga
LAUNCHED: 2023
We're continuing to look for a location that is more centrally located in Osceola County. We're the only PCA church in the county and because of this we've attracted more folks from St. Cloud than anticipated. From Jan-Oct of this year we've had 164 visitors but a good percentage have been folks on vacation. We're not far from Disney short-term rentals, etc. For these reasons we're looking for something more central in the county. Central is also where all the new growth and development is happening. I've felt pressure this year for numerical growth and some of that is good, but it's seemed like the Lord has been bringing growth in depth more than numbers right now. Many of my key leaders have been growing in gospel health this year, as well as myself! I'm obviously grateful for this and needing to trust how the Lord is building Kissimmee Fellowship.
Pray with us:
The Lord to provide a space that is centrally located in Osceola County, but still Kissimmee. Specifically we're actively looking in the Partin-Settlement area. The space where Kissimmee and St. Cloud are merging.
For spiritual growth, that the Lord would continue to bring gospel health to my core leaders
For the Lord bring numeric growth to our church.
UNIVERSITY PRESBYTERIAN
TAMPA | WRIGHT BUSCHING
LAUNCHED: 2023
Our temporary session examined candidates for the office of Ruling Elder in July. At a congregational meeting in August our congregation elected men to the office of Ruling Elder and voted to call me as the pastor of University Presbyterian Church. 61 communing members signed a petition to the Southwest Florida Presbytery to organize as a particular church.
On Saturday, September 13th, the Presbytery voted to approve our petition to organize as a particular church. On Sunday, September 21, 2025, a commission of the Presbytery oversaw an ordination, installation, and particularization service. We are so thankful for God's grace over the last 3 years. He has demonstrated his continual faithfulness. Our congregation continues to grow and is excited about the future.
Pray with us:
Pray for our elders as we organize the congregation into shepherding groups and begin caring for them as a session.
Pray that the Lord would continue to grow our internal giving so that we could reach 100% of our budget.
Pray that the Lord would provide a space for us to rent or purchase that would enable us to have a morning worship service and give us space to grow.
OAK CITY CHURCH
BARTOW | BRIAN MACDONALD
LAUNCHED: 2023
After a really difficult past twelve months of hardship and loss, we can exclaim, “The Lord is faithful!” As we have been studying in 1 Peter this fall, these words have rung particularly true at Oak City: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” [1:6-7]. The refining process has been challenging but productive and Oak City is a far healthier church today than we were a year ago! To God be the glory!
Evidence of health has manifested itself in a number of ways including: renewed joy and unity among the body and a renewed sense of every member serving! We can all now sing with King David, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” [Psalm 133:1] This unity has been integral in each member using their unique spiritual gift in areas such as: worship leadership, setting up signs, running sound, children’s and youth ministry, and mercy ministry.
Pray with us:
Pray for an increase of number of laborers to come and join our mission to “cultivate a healthy church for the beauty of Bartow.”
Praise God for the increase in our internal giving of tithes and offerings! Please pray for continued growth toward financial sustainability as we move toward the goal of becoming a particular church.
Pray for our current officer nominations for elder and deacon. Ask the Lord to give our members wisdom as they consider qualified men for this first class. Brian plans to start officer training in January for a year with the goal of ordaining these officers in 2027!
Praise God for the growing impact of our primary community outreach ministry, Oak City Biblical Counseling! Pray for our counselors, Sarah Puebla and Chris Boll, as they provide the hope of the gospel to sinners and sufferers.
Pray for our continued outreach and evangelism efforts in Bartow. Pray also for Brian as he continues to meet with unbelievers and seekers- particularly with a man who grew up in an Islamic cult and is now exploring Christ!
ANCHOR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
EAST COLLIER | GREG BLOSSER
LAUNCHED: 2025
Generally I have been pleased by the commitment of our smaller core of regularly attending and serving church people. They are humble and servant hearted and consistent.
I have been encouraged by the continual stream of visitors and unchurched people who are present weekly (nearly every week?). Our worship service has come together nicely. People seem to resonate with the form and the substance. The music is very good and some weeks excellent, even though we utilize many amateur, volunteer musicians and singers. It is well received. I get positive feedback on my sermons- but everybody gets positive feedback on sermons so who really knows, right?
I have been frustrated by the inconsistent attendance and involvement of a larger group of churched people who seem to consider themselves part of Anchor but don’t seem to prioritize being present regularly or serving consistently. They understand the church is there for them. That’s good. But many of them don’t yet understand the church needs them to be there for each other and for the mission.
Another encouragement is the growth and development of two home groups (13-17 adults each). A frustration has been getting the less consistent attenders to commit to home group involvement. Home groups are an essential part of our ministry & discipleship plan.
Pray with us:
Greater consistency & missional urgency amongst professing believers/ church people with respect to Sunday attendance, service and home group involvement.
The move of the Holy Spirit among unchurched people who have been orbiting the church and increased relational outreach among the churched to their neighbors.
NEW RIVER FELLOWSHIP
FT. LAUDERDALE | CHAN KILGORE
LAUNCHED: 2023
We moved into a new facility last Spring which caused us to lose some momentum. This Fall has been strong for us. Although our attendance has ebb and flowed we have new families connecting to our church family. We have four strong small groups. We have seen 11 people baptized since September and 3 more who have come to Christ and will be baptized in January.
Pray with us:
Pray for our internal giving. God has blessed us with generous outside donors. However, our internal giving is weak. The big factor is that about 70% of our members have come to Christ in the past couple of years and are being taught to steward their finances in a biblical way. We also have quite of few married people who have come to Christ but their spouses are not Christians which makes giving to the church difficult.
Please pray that God would continue to send strong leaders to our church.
Pray for my grandson Danny who was born deaf.
LAKESIDE COVENANT
MT. DORA | MATT MATULIA
LAUNCHED: 2024
The Lord has been very gracious to us in allowing us to grow over the summer and into this new school year. One of our goals and prayer was to launch our own mid-week children's and youth discipleship ministries. We were able to do this in August and we have an average attendance of 20-30 kids and 10-14 middle schoolers on Wednesday evenings. We also have group of 8-12 high schoolers that meet on Sunday evenings for discipleship. These children and students are some of our "church" kids and also some kids we know from our community whose families are not attending church (some attend a Roman Catholic Church).
We have also experienced growth in terms of our overall church attendance. Some new families have moved into our area which was one of our hopes and expectations in regards to our location. We have a number of families now who are attending from the North Apopka area which is an answer to prayer. Lastly, we have been and are currently making preparations to particularize in January. We are thankful to be at a place where we have grown to this point and are looking forward to this next step. Although we will be a particular church with elders, we recognize that we are still very much a "church plant" in terms of needing to continue to grow and develop our ministries, as well as disciple our people and help them engage as whole-life disciples.
Pray with us:
Pray for our process of particularization. We are growing from a "leadership team" to a group of elders. This is exciting, but also adds new challenges for us to experience as a church.
Pray that we can better integrate our newer families into serving in different aspects of the church. We need to grow in developing a more scheduled set-up and take-down team where more of our people can help share the load.
Pray that our people would catch the vision of "living missionary" in every aspect of their lives (neighborhoods, workplaces, communities).
Pray that myself and our new elders would have humble hearts, hearts centered on Christ and his gospel, and that we would be completely dependent upon the Lord and love and lead from that place of dependence.
CHRIST THE KING CHAPEL
DADE CITY | CHUCK WILLIAMS
LAUNCHED: 2024
MERCY HILL CHURCH
WINTER HAVEN | TONY ELSWICK
LAUNCHED: 2024
We are still having a great time at Mercy Hill! Since Easter we have seen steady growth, adding new families and even new leaders. We’ve seen several people come to faith and a several others reengaging their faith and getting back into church. It’s always a thrill to see how people grow and connect both with the Lord and with the church community. We had our first missions conference in the fall, which was a huge success as people got to meet the missionaries and be encouraged by God’s work overseas! We also have several families having babies, which is exciting. We started to add our first official members. We’ve had a lot of families in financial distress, but have seen a good number of them get new jobs! The Lord has been good!
I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in 2026! We are starting off the year with a special month-long prayer challenge, and prayer is going to be our theme for the year. We are going to be launching some new discipleship programs and expanding our Mercy Hill Institute classes which are designed to go deeper in theology and the christian life. We’ll also be kicking off a new community group. In every new church plant there are times of difficulty and struggle, but for the most part, I feel like God has been giving us a sweet season of joy and excitement in Him!
Pray with us:
We’ve broken down our journey to self-sufficiency into steps. We’ve past step one, where internal giving covers the pastoral salary and are currently on step 2, having internal giving expand to cover our rent. Please pray that we will quickly finish step 2 and move to step 3.
Along with being multi-cultural, we are also wanting to be multi-generational. Please pray that we will grow in the number of retirees attending Mercy Hill.
Please pray for our new discipleship and assimilation programs.
COVENANT LIFE COMMUNITY
ORLANDO | MOSES HAN
LAUNCHED: 2024
We are currently building up our ministry and establishing a healthy, missional DNA. As the church continues to grow, we’re hoping to identify leaders who can potentially be elder or deacon elects in the future. Particularization still seems like a long way to go, but God is gracious to show us his glory every step of the way.
Pray with us:
Potential elder and deacon elects.
Financial stability - we’ve just become a mission church and established our own funds this past year.
Growth of various ministries: children, fellowship, mission.
HOPE FELLOWSHIP
OCALA | JOSH GILMAN
LAUNCHED: 2025
This fall we have focused on our theme: "Growing Together in Christ" from John 15:5 as we continue our sermon series through the Gospel of John. In an effort to "gather and equip followers of Jesus Christ to reach their neighbors and the nations" we have launched 4 home groups this fall that meet 2x a month and are studying the scriptures and caring/prayers for one another. These groups are broken up geographically and have been growing and inviting folks from their neighborhoods to join in. We also launched our children's and student nights this fall with 15-20 from our community that meets in our home Wednesdays 2x a month from 6:30-8:00PM. We are utilizing the SeeJesus curriculums within our home groups and bible studies and our people have really enjoyed the discussion format. October 30th we hosted our first "Theology on Tap" evening at Hiatus Brewing as a discussion/incubator for future leaders and officers to be developed as Hope Fellowship moves forward towards particularization. We have also added an additional bible study for working moms led by my wife, Lorra Anne, as she has stepped away from her full-time role as a teacher so she now has more margins to care for the ladies in her season/stage of life. As we near the end of our first full-year as a new mission church, we are excited to celebrate the holidays together and invite more of our friends and neighbors to join us at Hope Fellowship!
Pray with us:
Please join us in praying for growth in grace for our people
Daily time in God’s Word
And evangelism/outreach opportunities this summer. We are praying and planning for our Backyard Bible Clubs later in July in some of our new neighborhoods like Kingsland Estates and Calesa.
MIAMI PCA PLANT
MIAMI | STEVE LANTZ
COASTAL PRESBYTERIAN
JAX BEACH | CHRISTOPHER BROCK
LAUNCHED: 2025
I began with CPC in August. CPC is a replant of a church originally launched by Christ Church East here in Jacksonville. The core group of the church did not want to dissolve, and so the church became a church plant directed by the North Florida Presbytery. They were already meeting for regular worship when I started. I was approved by the NFP in September, and officially installed in early October.
The church has a healthy church attendance, week to week. We are roughly 25 adults and 20 children, mostly middle school aged or younger. The church had no musician when I started, but by an amazing act of God's providence, a new couple has begun to attend, and the husband is a gifted worship leader who was anxious to be able to use his gifts to build the church. We've had regular visitors this fall, even though my primary focus has been to settle in to my new role here, and to get to know those already in the congregation. We have begun a catechism class for our preteens, which was warmly welcomed by the members of the church. We will begin a new members class early this next year, and after that, we will turn our attention to the intentional growing of the church through outreach and evangelism.
Pray with us:
We transitioned from the mission field to life in America, and this has been hard on a couple of my kids, who miss their life and friends in France. Please pray for them as they adapt to life here in the States.
Pray that I would be wise in identifying leaders here in our church. We have several men who could potentially help lead, so I pray for wisdom as I get to know these men.
Pray that we would grow. There is much opportunity here, but many who would normally attach themselves to our church are hesitant because of the situation surrounding the former pastor.
TAMPA CITY PRESBYTERIAN
TAMPA | STEPHEN KING
LAUNCHING: 2026
We started a Bible study on Sunday evenings on Sept. 14th. We have a simple meal together and study the person of Jesus. We had the privilege of seeing one person give their life to Christ. A young man named Cade. I have started meeting with him one-on-one for discipleship. We also formed a leadership launch team made up of 12 people to provide feedback and serve as volunteers. On Nov. 16th we held our first event, a Friendsgiving Potluck. Including our family, we had 33 adults and 7 children attend. It was a mix of people from our plant and our neighborhood. We look forward to Dec. 21st when we will hold our first preview service. It will be a Christmas Service at the Barrymore Hotel in Downtown Tampa. The goal will be twofold. First, to worship the Lord together and celebrate what He has allowed us to accomplish this Fall. Second, to invite new people to check out our church plant. We are thankful for your support and prayers as we seek to plant a PCA church in the heart of Tampa.
Pray with us:
Christmas Service - Logistics and new people to attend.
Kate's knee to continue to heal from her dislocation.
Our Launch Team will grow to 40 this Spring.
NEW CREATION CHURCH
SARASOTA | STEVE JEANTET
LAUNCHED: 2025
Our commitment is to take the next right step of faith with the church. As we have stated it, "We are called to tend a garden, not launch a rocket." Following an Easter sunrise service, we began gathering weekly, rotating between worship services, prayer gatherings, and equipping times. Then after Labor Day, we started weekly worship gatherings in the evening. And then, starting October 26th, we are meeting weekly for worship in the mornings (with thanks to the church we are renting from moving their service time to accommodate us).
Throughout that time, we have seen God bring in new people and firmed up the people who are calling New Creation Church their church. We just had our first annual Stones of Remembrance service where, in line with Joshua 4, people shared how they wanted to remember the faithfulness of God over the previous year. Beautiful to create a memorial to the character and work of God in these early days of our church that we will build upon each year.
Pray with us:
2-3 more families to commit to New Creation Church that will help those families that visit feel like they fit in
Long-term worship leader (even as we praise God for those who have joyfully and graciously stepped in to help us)
CHRISTCHURCH MIAMI
MIAMI (KENDALL) | JAMES DRAKE
LAUNCHED: 2025
Christchurch Miami continues to experience God’s grace in remarkable ways. The Lord has grown us to an average of 200 in weekly worship, including 50 children, more than double the attendance from this time last year. We are seeing many young families join our fellowship and are rejoicing in new believers professing faith in Christ. Over the past year we have received 40 new members, and our Servant Leader (deacon/leadership) development team is expanding, with eight new officer candidates currently nominated and under review.
We are intentionally equipping the body through discipleship and mission. The church is hosting monthly community outreach events, and we have launched weekly family dinners paired with structured discipleship pathways for men, women, couples, empty nesters, and youth. We give thanks for what the Lord has done and pray for continued growth in grace, maturity, and mission as we seek to help the people of Miami know, love, and serve Jesus Christ.
Pray with us:
Spiritual Maturity & Discipleship // Pray that the Lord would deepen our people in love for Christ, hunger for Scripture, and joyful obedience; that new believers and long-time saints alike would grow into spiritual maturity. Our youth are learning the catechisms and growing in their understanding of reformed theology.
Leadership Development // Pray for the eight officer candidates and emerging servant leaders. Ask God to raise up elders and deacons filled with wisdom, humility, and a shepherd’s heart as the church continues to grow.
Outreach & Mission in Miami // Pray for fruitful community engagement and gospel witness through our monthly outreaches. May the Lord draw many to saving faith and help Christchurch Miami be a faithful light in our city.
Provision & Sustainability // Pray for God’s continued provision of volunteers, financial resources, and ministry capacity as attendance grows. Ask that we steward this season well with grace, unity, and dependence on Christ. I am currently raising $225,000 for 2026 budget. Thank you for standing with us.