Southland Christian Church, Lexington, Kentucky

Southland Christian Church is an evangelical, Christian church near Lexington, Kentucky, United States. The church is located at the corner of U.S. Route 68 (Harrodsburg Road) and Brannon Road in Jessamine County. It is associated with the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. Its current Senior Pastor, Jon Weece, came to the church as a teaching pastor in 2000, and became Senior Pastor in 2003.

ize and facility

Southland Christian Church is considered a megachurch. It is one of Kentucky's largest churches, averaging 8,000-10,000 in attendance per weekend in five services. The convert|115|acre|km2|sing=on sprawling campus includes multiple buildings, structures and parking lots. The main sanctuary can be converted into two gymnasiums. The church also has a substantial ministry to the poor through its Helping Through Him ministry, including an on-site warehouse.

History

The church started in 1956 as a mission of Broadway Christian Church in Lexington. The founding pastor, Wayne Smith, came from Unity Christian Church (near Cynthiana, Kentucky), and held the first service with 172 people in attendance. The church was originally located on Hill 'N Dale Drive (near Southland Drive) in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1981, the church had grown substantially and relocated to a 20 acre site across the county line in neighboring Jessamine County. It has since expanded its property to convert|115|acre|km2.

The founding Senior Pastor, Wayne Smith, announced in 1995 that he would retire. At the time of his retirement, average church attendance was in the thousands. A pastor search committee was formed, and steps were taken to find a replacement for Wayne Smith.

However, after Smith announced his retirement and in the midst of the search, Mike Breaux, pastor of Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, was invited to preach one weekend. Soon after that weekend, the pastor search committee suspended the search process and prayerfully concluded that God was calling them to invite Mike Breaux to be the Senior Pastor. He then became the church's second senior pastor. During his tenure the church grew to an attendance of more than 7,000 persons a week. Jon Weece joined Southland as a teaching pastor in 2000, sharing in the responsibilities of a church with six weekend services. After a building program that reduced the weekend services from six to five, Breaux moved to Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, in 2003.

Weece, a former missionary to Haiti, became the third senior pastor on September 1, 2003. Still in his twenties at the time, he was one of the youngest megachurch senior pastors in the United States. He initially shared teaching responsibilities with Jim Burgen, formerly of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville. Burgen has since left for Flatirons Community Church in Colorado and Weece now shares preaching responsibilities with regular guest, Mike Breaux.

Beliefs

As a Restoration Movement church, Southland's beliefs are similar to other churches' in the movement, although local congregations are independent and may vary slightly from each other. Southland members include a large number of people with roots in denominations outside the Restoration Movement, including a significant number from Baptist and Wesleyan/Methodist traditions among others. As such, the church also has strong influences from, and often even identifies itself with, protestantism.

In short, the following is a summary of what Christians who are members of Southland are asked to believeref|fn4:
* Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, who died for our sins and arose from the dead.
* The Bible is the inspired word of God.
* Every person has worth as a creation of God, but that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
* Forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life are available to those who trust Christ as Savior and Lord.
* Those accepting Christ should repent of sin, confess their faith, and be baptized into Him. This implies that salvation is not received by doing one of the above but all of the above.
* The Church is the body of Christ on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit and exists to evangelize the lost and edify the saved.
* Jesus Christ will one day return to earth and reign forever as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Worship services

Southland Christian Church has a Saturday evening service, three Sunday morning services and one Sunday evening service, "608" (the time that the service begins) which targets college students and young adults. All five services are contemporary in style, and casual in dress.

The Southland Hour

Southland Christian Church's television ministry began Oct. 13, 1985 with one camera and a borrowed recorder. All post production work was hired out and the tape was then brought to WTVQ for airing the following weekend.

From the very beginning, this ministry was run entirely by volunteers and even with seed money and equipment from a volunteer. These forward-thinking people had a vision greater than the walls of the church – they desired to take our services into the homes of those that would not or could not walk into the building. Early on the desire was simply to, in the words of an early volunteer, "be an accurate representation of our church body’s worship and praise of our Lord, an open invitation to the viewer to turn to Christ, and, if possible to join us in worship." The next step was the addition of multiple cameras to allow for more complete coverage of the service and its many parts. In the early 1990’s this was achieved and the crew grew to 3 camera operators, a director choosing shots and providing direction for the cameras and an audio engineer. Shortly after this step, a graphics operator was added to add text and names to the television program.

Another key milestone was reached in 1996 when Southland Christian Church moved all editing and post production within the walls of the church. The church had recently hired thier first technical staff member, and with the addition of another team member, the editing of the program was entirely in Southland’s hands. This was a major improvement not only in cost effectiveness but in total creative control of the content of "The Southland Hour".

2001 brought many significant changes to the face of the ministry. New cameras, new switching and control equipment, and new locations were only the tip of the iceberg. The move to the new building dramatically increased our crew needs: an 11 member crew is needed for just video work during every service. This group is responsible for both image magnification in the worship center and the television program recording. Editing of the program occurs during the week and the service airs the following week on WTVQ. [Article from Southland's official production services website, SCCTech.org]

Today, "The Southland Hour" airs at 10:00AM each Sunday on WTVQ TV36 which broadcasts throughout the East Central Kentucky Region. It also airs periodically throughout the week on Insight Communications Cable channel 14.

Letters to Britney Spears

The church hit national newswires on October 27 2007, when the "Lexington Herald-Leader" reported that Southland was preparing to send a package to Britney Spears filled with letters from church members bearing the general message "Britney, Jesus loves you." Weece was inspired to send the package after seeing news of . Then, in a sermon and a September blog entry on Southland's official web site, he asked Southland members to send the letters, asking them, "What if Britney Spears were Britney Smith and what if she lived next door to us? What would we do?" In his sermon introducing the idea to the congregation, Weece cited Mother Theresa saying, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

As of the "Herald-Leader" report, the church was still collecting letters, and was trying to determine the best way to make sure the letters actually got to her. [cite news|url=http://kentucky.com/454/story/214127.html |title=Church sending 'Jesus loves you' letters to Britney |first=Valarie |last=Honeycutt Spears |publisher="Lexington Herald-Leader" |date=2007-10-27 |accessdate=2007-10-27]

References

External links

* [http://www.southlandchristian.org/ Southland Christian Church Website]
* [http://www.608worship.org/ "608" Service Official Website]

ee also

*List of megachurches