Why Morgantown?

I think back to 2001 when the seed was planted in my heart to plant a new church somewhere in the north. God had used several events in my life to get me thinking about planting.

While living in Texas, I had several opportunities to pastor established churches, but I felt deep inside my heart that God was calling me to church planting.

For the longest time, I thought I would become the Texas State Treasurer of Missions in our Association. I truly thought that job was ideal for me, but God saw otherwise. I loved living in Texas. I loved the people there. I loved my quaint little East Texas house and my 2.6 acres of land. I loved my neighbors, my church, my city, and most of all Jaimes Rancho Mexican Restaurant. That was the life!!! So, I thought!

I always knew that if I was going to plant a church that I wanted to plant somewhere in the North. I wanted to plant with a team, and I wanted to have a sending church that would be somewhere in the vicinity of our new plant. Well, God answered all of the desires of my heart.

After the ball dropped in 2002, we (the Sheffstall's and Knight's) planned a trip to survey possible church planting cities. We visited places in Southern Virginia, Northern Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana. After the week was out...we had visited eleven states in seven days. What were we thinking? :)

The funny thing about the trip...we only passed through Morgantown. We had been told by an experienced church planter to go to a larger city, so we listened to him. After a couple of months, we decided to revisit Morgantown, West Virginia. Russell and I got on a plane and we headed North. We spent five days in Morgantown surveying the people and spending time in their establishments. After the week was out, we knew God had called us to this wonderful city. We understood that this city was religious, even though 88% of the people did not have a meaningful church relationship. We understood that there was a great need for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be proclaimed to the people of Morgantown.

Since moving to this city we have had many challenges and obstacles that we have faced, but overall, we are so thankful to God for placing us in Morgantown, West Virginia. We know that when it is all said and done (by His grace) we will have a self-supporting, church sending, gospel preaching church that will hopefully remain until the Lord comes back.