For the last four years, I’ve been coached and prepared to step into the Lead Pastor role at Lifebridge. That was the plan. But on Feb 25th, 2025, at a prayer night, God interrupted the plan.
At the end of the gathering, my Kenyan brother James Mwangi came up to me and said, “I have a word for you.” He asked me to open my Bible to John 4:23–24. I read it out loud — a passage that has lived in my heart for years. It’s the vision I’ve always carried for the church I would one day lead
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
After I read it, he looked at me and said, ( insert Kenyan accent) “That is the church God wants you to lead. This is what God wants you to lead His people into.” Then he began naming things in my heart — fears, thoughts, wrestlings — things he had no way of knowing. I stood there with my mouth on the floor. I often joke that I’ve never heard God speak audibly, but after that night, I’m convinced God has a Kenyan accent.
That night confirmed what God had been stirring in me for years: a calling to lead people into becoming true worshippers — those who worship the Father in spirit and truth. People who are not just attending church, but living life with Christ now.
A few months later, while sitting quietly in prayer, I heard one word in my spirit: “Go.”
Go where? I didn’t know. The word followed me everywhere — especially as I preached through Luke 10 in the same week, where Jesus sends out the seventy-two and tells them, “Go.” I had godly men around me helping me process, reminding me to simply be faithful to what God had said today — “Go.”
On July 15, 2025, I took a prayer day in the woods, asking God, “Please speak. I only want to be obedient.” After sitting in silence, I opened my Bible, and it fell to Haggai chapter 1, verse 7. My eyes landed on these words:
“Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified.”
Hannah and I have talked about church planting since we were 23 years old, but we never wanted to plant unless the Lord made it unmistakably clear. Now He has. We are stepping into planting 423 Church in the Hamilton Crossing area of Cartersville Ga. We are currently in conversation with a church in that area about partnering with them and renting their building. This area has so many new families with a growing community of shops, stores, waterparks, sports, and new homes.
423 Church will be built on John 4:23–24. Our vision is simple: to lead people into living life with Christ now, by becoming true worshippers. Not cultural Christians. Not spectators. True worshippers whose daily lives bring glory to God.
This story of God's work in Cartersville, GA, is just beginning, and I want to ask you: are you curious about what the shape of the church to come will be? A church that is real, a church that is about life with jesus. I know what it will look like, but if you are interested, as I am in knowing and being a part, welcome.