- Church planting & multiplication
Spencer and Sarah Green sat in the drive-thru, engine idling as the line of cars slowly moved toward the window.
The squawk of a human voice came every few minutes through the speaker as another customer asked for food and drinks. When it was the Greens' turn to order, the pastors of Story Church surprised the Wendy's worker.
"We just want to give you something," instead of ordering food, they told the employee. "We just want to thank you for what you do."
As they pulled around to the window, the Greens had a gift, a way to love somebody who's usually just getting yelled at.
"They think it's crazy we're out on a Sunday morning and not in a building," Sarah Green said.
Story Church, which started in September 2021, explicitly seeks opportunities like that on fifth Sundays. The church goes into the community to pour blessings, repurposing resources away from renting the school a few times a year.
They've cleaned up parks and lake shores, given care packages with gift cards and placed encouraging notes to women on cosmetics products or diapers. Sarah Green said the notes declare 'You're an amazing mom' or 'You have absolute worth on the inside.'
Love outside the building is what brought them in
Both the Greens are in God's family because someone left their church building to spend time in a middle school. The youth pastor of a church in Eustis, their hometown, would come to the middle school. He'd sit at a table in the cafeteria, handing out pizza and befriending students.
"He was Jesus with skin on," Spencer Green said.
Through that pastor, both the Greens encountered the love and joy of Christ in a way that would eventually help them embrace a local church. A few years later, when Spencer despaired during one of several tragedies in his family's life, he remembered the pastor’s joy.
He reached out to the man and gave his life to Christ six months afterward. He stayed active in that church, went to seminary and led their youth ministry.
"I'd finally found a family worth being a part of," Spencer said.
The same was true for Sarah Green. She grew up in a Christian family and trusted Christ at a young age. Still, severe health challenges for Sarah's younger sister left Sarah an angry Christian. Like Spencer, one day, she noticed the youth pastor serving pizza at the same middle school.
We want to stop hearing stories of ‘the church hurt me’ and start hearing stories of ‘the church healed me.
Sarah Green
The pastor and his church lovingly welcomed Sarah and her family to come as they were.
"That church did everything they could to make us comfortable to come and receive the Lord," she added.
Now, the Greens want to do the same for the churched, dechurched and hurt people in Clermont.
"We want to stop hearing stories of ‘the church hurt me’ and start hearing stories of ‘the church healed me,’" Sarah Green said. "We just want people to feel like they can walk into a church without a mask on and share their highs and their lows."
A rapidly changing community with age-old problems
The church's name comes from Revelation, where Scripture says people overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. The Greens see so much power in a story of victory through Jesus.
That transformation is why they embrace people who've relocated to the Orlando bedroom community from across America. The town, surrounded by lakes and land that used to be orange groves, is expected to double in population in a few years.
"We love it because that just means there are new people to invite to church who don't already go somewhere," she said.
In a sense, there are two Clermonts: one is people who grew up with one stoplight, farming on orange groves and driving rural roads. Another Clermont is all the people transplanting for work, better weather or a new start in a different culture.
Even in a beautiful town a short drive from beaches and Disney World, there is grief in life and struggle for people who need hope in Jesus. Story Church is a congregation where the pain and the redemption intersect.
That's why they're embracing people who've bought into a typical unfulfilling lifestyle: be busy, make more, buy more, do more. They form relationships in love and share the message of Jesus: take a pause and connect with the Father.
In addition to helping people pause, Story Church makes another piece of life's plot plain: in a post-COVID world, community is vital.
There can be different reasons why people don't have strong relationships. They might be too busy, or they might be too entertained, or they might be too active in digital experiences.
Whatever the case, Story Church welcomes people ready for authenticity and intimacy in a church. Spencer Green said people miss vulnerability and intimacy with people, which is why the church emphasizes those experiences.
Dinner parties are a successful endeavor where people in the congregation can talk about God and the Bible while taking their next step with Jesus together. That's what they found years ago as young students eating pizza with a pastor, joining a church and living among God's people.
Now, inspired by new churches being the best way for new people to meet Jesus, they're leading Story Church so others experience healing, hope and God's love.
"There should be more churches like this," Sarah Green said. "We know that we know that we know the local church is the hope of the world."
Converge's 10 districts have committed to deploying 312 church planters before 2026. Read more inspiring church planting stories and learn about the goal to send out 312 church planters in five years.
