Buckhead Church

It's amazing.

This guy started as an intern in 1998 and worked his way up to lead one of the main multi-site churches called Buckhead Church.

He was recently served as executive director of North Point Ministries.

So he's well known to the people.

Anyway, so he was there for seven years.

Then in 2021, the lead pastor at Buckhead Church resigned and he resigned to me.

And after he did, it was very difficult for me not to immediately pull out my phone and call Joel.

I'm like, no, Andy, don't do that.

I thought, you know, one of our staff behaviors, one of the things we teach all the time on our staff is remain open-handed, remain open-handed, remain open-handed.

And that was the spirit of his response.

So in the fall of 2021, He accepted the job to be lead pastor at Buckhead Church.

Jen immediately moved the kids here at the very end of the summer to get them settled in school.

Mm

... and the place we felt the most comfortable, and we had landed at a megachurch in Atlanta called Buckhead Church that's a, a great non-denominational church, part of a bigger effort through North Point Ministries.

And so we were there, and I started feeling like I wanted to kneel.

The church met in an auditorium, which is very common at megachurches-

Mm-hmm.

And I thought, you know, "Do I need to go back to a more traditional Protestant church, like the Episcopal Church, or Larry was raised Presbyterian.

Do I need to do that? Why do I feel like I want to kneel? I don't wanna just sit in this auditorium." So around that same time, a friend of mine who was part of Buckhead Church as well, and we had known each other, our husbands had grown up together, she had attended a silent retreat at a retreat house in Atlanta, a Catholic retreat house, with her non-denominational group.

Hmm.

It was just – it was a really good time.

I told Andy when I talked to him, and I don't know if I've ever told you this before, but I mentioned to him that actually I met, well, Brittany and I were both in the same firm, but actually one of the first things we did together was we actually went to church together at Buckhead Church, which was one of the Andy Stanley North Point churches.

And then I actually told him, I was like, before I actually met Brittany, I actually followed that curriculum that you mentioned as a part of one of the speaking series.

So when I was younger, like a newly fresh-eyed CPA, you know, I would actually go to this bucket church.

... which is so heartbreaking.

Um, so what our kiddos are experiencing, and I talk to kids all the time 'cause I'm like, "Keep me honest." I was at Buckhead last night, Buckhead Church, talking to parents.

And every time I get prepared for SOAR, any sort of conversation with parents, I don't wanna just highlight what the research is saying.

I wanna talk to them about what kids are saying to me in the therapy room.

If there's anybody at your church, a family ministry leader, maybe just a friend, someone that you can meet for coffee.

Mm-hmm.

I did a talk last night at Buckhead Church, I mentioned, and there were three moms that showed up, and two of them were like, "I wasn't gonna come." [laughs] "But she talked me into it, and then she talked me into it."

Mm-hmm.