{"id":50652,"date":"2025-07-22T14:31:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/?p=50201"},"modified":"2025-11-04T16:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:25:42","slug":"north-river-church-parrish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/north-river-church-parrish\/","title":{"rendered":"Church embraces \u2018amazing opportunity\u2019 of rapidly growing community"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARRISH\u2014North River Church in Parrish, an unincorporated community in northwestern Manatee County, is going \u201cabove and beyond\u201d to reach its community with the gospel.<\/p>\n

North River Church began as a church plant from West Bradenton Baptist Church in October 2010. Within three years, the church became an autonomous Florida Baptist church, and in 2015 the church purchased 10 acres of land for its future church home. After meeting at Williams Elementary for almost 10 years and growing to just under 300, the church moved into its new facility in October 2020.<\/p>\n

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“The Lord in His kindness, His goodness and His providence has placed North River Church in a rapidly growing community. We have thousands of people moving into the community whose only hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so it\u2019s an amazing opportunity that we have before us.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n Michael Kennedy<\/strong>
\n lead pastor, North River Church, Parrish\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

What launched as a church plant of 10 core people is now a multigenerational church experiencing unprecedented growth in southwest Florida. Within just six months of moving into its new church home, North River knew it would only be a temporary space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw a little bit of an increase, but within six months it was very apparent that we were going to be going into two services,\u201d said Scott Kerlin, worship and media pastor at the church. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone expected that. It really was just a God moment in our church\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

What most churches interpret as a problem, North River Church is seeing as an \u201copportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Manatee County, 67% of people are unchurched\u2014that\u2019s more than 200,000 people. With thousands of young families moving into the community each year, North River Church is strategically located to reach the newcomers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord in His kindness, His goodness and His providence has placed North River Church in a rapidly growing community,\u201d said Michael Kennedy, the church\u2019s lead pastor. \u201cWe have thousands of people moving into the community whose only hope is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so it\u2019s an amazing opportunity that we have before us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recognizing that people are starving for truth, looking to seize the opportunity to meet a desperate need in its community, and seeking to faithfully equip its church family, the church has launched an \u201cAbove and Beyond\u201d campaign in order to build a larger facility to reach its neighbors for Christ.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we began to build phase one, our desire was to build a home for family\u2013the people who had been a part of North River already,\u201d said Kerlin. \u201cBut now, we\u2019re building a home for our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phase 2, which broke ground in April, will include a new 25,600-square-feet facility, large enough to include a 750-seat sanctuary, large lobby with seating, an expansion of its children\u2019s ministry space, and offices and counseling space. This will allow the church to go from three to two Sunday morning services, still allowing room to grow as the unchurched in the community are reached with the gospel.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy God\u2019s grace and for God\u2019s glory, we see a multigenerational gathering of over 2,000 people here every weekend to lift the name of Jesus high in worship,\u201d said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

For North River Church, the \u201cAbove and Beyond\u201d campaign is more than a building expansion project\u2014it\u2019s an opportunity for people to grow in Christlikeness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to faithfully point people toward a relationship with God that can only come through knowing Christ,\u201d said Kennedy. \u201cWe want to diligently come alongside people as they grow in Christlikeness. And we want to passionately propel people into their spheres of influence to be a force of God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled gospel ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARRISH\u2014North River Church in Parrish, an unincorporated community in northwestern Manatee County, is going \u201cabove and beyond\u201d to reach its community with the gospel. North River Church began as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":66410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,11,23,25],"tags":[2591,2592,2593,2594],"class_list":["post-50652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-region-central","category-expanding","category-sharing","category-stories","tag-manatee-county","tag-michael-kennedy","tag-multigenerational","tag-north-river-church-in-parrish"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67880,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50652\/revisions\/67880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}