User:Baywestchurch/sandbox

Bay West Church is a satellite campus of First Baptist Church of Melbourne, Florida that launched its first worship service on Sunday, September 9, 2009.

Beginning It was the initial vision of Dr. Larry Bazer, the Senior Pastor of FBC Melbourne, who retired after 25 years at FBC in 2011, founding the organization Sent, Etc., an organization dedicated to "equipping the church" by training leaders abroad in countries that had limited educational opportunities. After many attempts to plant at church in Palm Bay, Florida, through traditional methods, Dr. Bazer and the leadership of FBC decided to try to plant a church by planting a satellite campus in Palm Bay. Dr. Bazer approached the Minister of Young Adults at FBC, Jim Campbell, about leading the project to start the campus and become the campus pastor when it was established. Having been on staff at The Church on Rush Creek in Arlington, TX, Jim had helped launch the first satellite campus, Mira Lagos, in a supportive role and drew on that experience to help lead the launch. In March of 2009, at a service at FBC Melbourne, members started committing to be a part of the Launch Team and on Sunday, September 9, 2009, they had their first service at Heritage High School with 170 people in attendance.

Renting Heritage High School for 5 hours each week on Sunday mornings, Bay West Church first setup teams arrived at 7:30am to set up the auditorium with all lights, sound equipment, children's areas front hospitality area. They held services at 10am, with a corresponding KIDzone worship time for children from birth to 6th grade. After each service, Bay West servants would take down all equipment and store it away in custom cabinets to repeat the entire process the next Sunday. Throughout the week, Bay West Church members and regular attenders would meet for small group Bible study in homes.

Time at Heritage High School (2009-2013) Bay West Church began to grow and become an established Christian community. Launching with Jim Campbell as Campus Pastor & Bevan Brennan as Children's Leader, the Worship Leaders on Sunday mornings were shared between Paul Sexton, Elliot Davis and Katye Campbell, Jim's wife. They did a wonderful job until they transitioned to one leader. In April 2010, Randy Wouters joined the staff of Bay West Church as Worship Leader, along with his wife, MC and their young son. Randy and MC had been the Leaders of the Student Ministry at a local church, Zion Church (now Centerpointe Church) in Palm Bay. In January 2011, Nathan Smith accepted the staff position of Student Leader and began working with Bay West Church's students. After the resignation of Bevan Brennan, Children's leader from the beginning of Bay West Church, in May 2013, Raul Torres, member of the original Launch Team, accepted the position of Children's Leader and came on staff in July 2013.

Reaching out to the community After reading a community survey completed by the city of Palm Bay in 2008 which stated that a large need in Palm Bay was for things to do for families, Bay West Church started it's "Family Fun Night", held on it's anniversary every year to provide a night of fun for the people of Palm Bay. The inaugural event was held next to the Pavilion by the Ted Whitlock Community Center in Palm Bay Regional Park on Malabar Road with an attendance of about 400 people. Each year, except for 2012, Bay West Church has held this event for the community.

Continuing to serve the community, Bay West Church began a partnership with Brevard Parks and Recreation to be a regular sponsor for their "Movie in the Park" program at Palm Bay Regional Park. These partnered events, held on the soccer fields at Palm Bay Regional Park, were designed for kids to have a movie to come see with their families. The movies were all rated for young audiences and concessions were sold by the Youth Soccer Leagues at Palm Bay Regional Park to help support youth soccer. The event, along with the movies, have games for kids, tablet giveaways, balloon animal artists, live music from local bands and local charities like Give a Little Hope, a local charity founded by Randy Wouters, worship leader at Bay West, which raises support to pay for local cancer patients medical bills and expense, after they have exhausted their insurance benefits. Give a Little Hope began as the band "Sally's Hope" started by Randy Wouters and former Bay West Worship Team lead guitarist Andrew Derrick that gives all proceeds from its merchandise sales, CD sales and concerts to help local families with their cancer related medical bills. From there, it has grown into the full 501c3 organization that it is today. This beginning was a response to Andrew's mother's (Sally) bout with cancer and her faith in Christ in the midst of the struggle. The inspiration began during Bay West Church's year long emphasis "Radical", challenging members to listen to God and launch their own initiatives to help the community. In August 2014, Randy resigned his position on staff at Bay West Church to be able put more time and energy into the growth of "Give a Little Hope" in Brevard County.

In 2010, Bay West invited John James, former lead singer of the Grammy Award winning Christian band "Newsboys", to speak at their services and had their highest attendance to date of 350 people in service.

To case the vision of God reaching out from the church body, Pastor Jim invited many ministries and people to be interviewed in the services on Sunday, to help people see the possibilities of Bay West could do to help the community around it. Bay West Church, even though in its infancy, responded and began to reach out to the community around it, attempting to help with families where it could and with larger charities that it could help along the way. Bay West began to strategically add its energy to different charities with a mission to share the Gospel and meet needs from national ministry projects such as building homes with Habitat for Humanity, to local ministries such as Mission Melbourne-Palm Bay, Within Reach Ministries and Dove Bible Club...all radical ministries begun by people with big hearts for following Christ.

In December 2013, Bill Posey, United States House of Representatives, Representative from Florida presented Pastor Jim Campbell and Bay West Church with an official proclamation from the United States Congress, House of Representatives, recognizing their efforts to strengthen families in Brevard County. Florida.

Reaching out to the world Upon prayer, the leadership of Bay West Church began to look for ways to expand its reach to help, not only domestic efforts, but also international efforts as well. Because of its small size, this undertaking was thought to be small in nature, at best. Their first efforts were to partner with Viera Water Network to fund the building of a clean water system for Las Lajas, a small village in Nicauragua. To raise funds, Bay West Church designed and sold its first T-shirt, giving 100% of the sales dollars to the project with VWN. Partnering with VWN and a Menonite church on the ground in Nicauragua, the project was able not only to provide a clean water system, but also, through the efforts of God and the Menonite church on the ground in Nicaragua, many people came to know Christ as they worked with the church to build the system and the team left Las Lajas with both a new clean water system, but also establishing the first church in the village.

Many members of Bay West Church joined with FBC Melbourne to go on mission trips during the Radical year. From Romania to Nicaragua to Haiti, they traveled to help spread the message that Christ loves all to people while helping to meet the needs of the local communities.

In May of 2010, Bay West Church began filming and editing the sermons for webcast on Sunday mornings. Bay West established its video channel on Vimeo at www.vimeo.com/channels/baywestchurch. A very small campus, this opportunity provided them with another outlet to help people across the world by making the Gospel available. Through promotion from Facebook, vimeo and other social media, in July 2013, their videos had been viewed by people in 95 different countries, from the US and Canada to countries like Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Singapore, Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Germany.

Panama Dr. Larry Bazer, along with Campus Pastor Jim Campbell and a team of lay people, led the first vision trip to Panama City, Panama in May 2010. FBC Melbourne had felt led to adopt the Hakka Chinese people of Panama, about 300,000 Chinese people living in Panama City classified as an "unreached people" group because of the low number of Christians detected (less than 500). Through the relationships built their many people from Bay West have gone over, using the novelty of being "American" to help the Panamanian Christians, such as believers at FBC Melbourne's partner church in ministry in Panama, Iglesia Bautista El Dorado, gain more relationships with secular organizations within the city, with a greater eye to reach the Hakka Chinese with the message of Christ.

Transitioning locations In 2012, Dr. Scott Wilson, new Lead Pastor of FBC Melbourne, led Jim and the staff of FBC Melbourne to begin to pray about changing locations for Bay West out of Heritage High School to a more permanent location, allowing them the ability to meet more than just Sunday morning. Many attempts and plans were researched, but ultimately, efforts for a new location yielded no options, until Jim was introduced by Loretta Dozier, founder of Dove Bible Club, to Mark Ostrander, pastor of The Mission Church, in Palm Bay, at a prayer breakfast on May 2, 2013.

After a short conversation, Pastor Mark proposed an idea to Jim Campbell of renting space from their church, The Mission Church and meeting in their building on Sunday mornings. From there, though much prayer and wise counsel, Bay West's leadership decided to move to in August 2013. Pastor Mark Ostrander, Pastor Jesse Ostrander and the leadership of The Mission displayed great generosity in not only sharing the facility, but offering to move their service back to 9am from their traditional 10:15am on Sundays, to allow Bay West Church to have a Sunday morning worship time at 11am. Bay West Church's first worship service at The Mission Church was on August 11, 2013.

Location for the future In mid 2013, an anonymous donor contacted the staff of FBC Melbourne with the offer to buy land for Bay West Church to build on, and if they were not ready to build, that the donor would hold the land until Bay West Church was ready. The purchase of 6.76 acres with frontage on Malabar Road in Palm Bay, FL was secured in November 2013. On April 5, 2014, Dr. Scott Wilson, then Lead Pastor of FBC Melbourne, Jim Campbell, Campus Pastor of Bay West Church, Randy Wouters, Worship Leader, Nathan Smith, Student Leader, Raul Torres, Children's Leader, Mandy Leitch, Ministry Assistant and many others gathered to pray and hang a sign on the property proclaiming the site the "future home of Bay West Church".