Kim Gentes

The story starts off in 1997. Late in 1997 I felt God speak to me that I was supposed to quit my job and pursue Him in the area of worship. Being a software engineer at the time, I had been working almost 10 years for a large company and had enjoyed being in fast growing career. We had just had our third son, Cody that year, and there was lots of growing responsibility for myself and Carol (my wife). Towards the end of '97 I had a dream that seemed to indicate a new direction was coming. I felt like God said he was going to converge many of the areas of my life into a more focused direction. Over the year from 1993 through 1997 I had a growing interest and involvement with the Internet. Back in 1994, I helped start a email discussion group called the Worship List, which helped worship leaders and musicians to communicate and support each other. That developed into a website called the Worship Resource Center and later more online resources (http://www.praise.net/).

By 1997 I was seen as somewhat of an expert on the Internet in regards to worship and the online community. During 1997 I consulted with EMI CMG to help them market an online presence for a new worship band they were helping get exposure in the US. The band was Delirious. I helped do online marketing for their website http://www.praise.net/ . From that relationship, I later (1998) served as a consultant to help EMI launch the website http://www.worshiptogether.com/ , an online resource for their entire new modern worship label.

In late 1997 I felt the Lord say that I was to start a new online presence, called worshipmusic.com to use both my worship leading gifting and my software consulting and engineering skills as a combined skill set for helping resource the church. The first part of 1998, my company I worked for was going through a set of layoffs to reduce engineering staff in some areas. Though I was protected from the layoffs as part of a critical group of engineers in my company, felt the Lord prompt me to quit my job and use the opportunity to jump out and follow what He was asking me to do. So I resigned, took out my 401k and pooled all our money with my brother (Lockley) into a small fund that would be the basis of our new venture. We began Worshipmusic.com in March 1998. I spent about 6 weeks getting it up and running and it launched in April. Over the next several months the growth was slow, but sure. As our money ran dry, my wife was amazingly supportive, not worrying and upset.

After a few months it was clear that the company would be slower than we hoped at getting off the ground, at least it wouldn't be able to support me and my family quickly. So I began to look for work as a software consultant. I quickly found a contract. I worked for a few months helping to develop a database program for the Mac called Helix. But the job was short-lived, and I was looking for another contract by October.

During my search for that next set of work, in 1998, I met a man named Jean-Paul Parenteau during a job interview I was doing. JP (as he is called) was interviewing me. I found out that he was a Christian, and we immediately struck up a friendship. I also found out that he went to a Vineyard church in Tempe, a sister church of the local Vineyard fellowship I was serving at in Mesa, AZ. JP is one of those guys who is not only heartfelt about his personal pursuit of Christ, but is infectious with his passion, effecting everyone around him. Right in the first few interactions with JP, I could tell he was a person I enjoyed being around and liked working with. We worked on projects at that company and grew to become good friends. Several months later I was working at another company (Intel) and I was in the position of looking for more people to staff our development. So, I was able to help JP get hired into Intel, where we again reconnected and continued our friendship.

During this time, a mutual respect grew not only from our common interests in both professional lives, but our ministry understandings and vision. It was in that time we said that there may be a time coming where we could see we might work together in some ministry aspect. As the years past, and I found out that JP felt called to plant a church, we stayed in touch and I mentioned to him my interest in knowing how his progress would develop towards planting a church. I talked to Carol about it, and we both were encouraged, but waited for more confirmation and the sense of clarity and timing. The last few years, I felt a more clear sense that Carol and I would be going to help in a new endeavour. As we talked, we walked through various considerations, but kept coming back to the possibility of working with JP and Margaret in a church plant. A couple years ago Carol encouraged me that she felt good about moving forward with talking more seriously to the Parenteau's about a church plant. By this time, JP and Margaret were well along in the process of moving towards church planting.

In the last year, we made a commitment to work towards being a part of a church plant with JP and Margaret for a new Vineyard church plant in the SanTan corridor (along the 202/SanTan freeway area). In the last few months, a clearer time frame for a release from our current churches (us from the Gilbert Vineyard, and them from the Tempe Vineyard) has been established. We will be leaving for the church plant in the month of January 2008. Our plan right now is to begin meeting in small group settings sometime around October/November, and to be released to our own "church plant status" in Jan 2008.

While we are excited about this, there are still lots of cautions and things to consider. Leaving our current church will not be easy, as we have many great relationships with folks there. While those won't dissolve immediately, living and serving in a local church community is one of the things that draws people together, and we know that being apart of another fellowship on a weekly basis means we will not have the guaranteed times of seeing some of our friends that we now have on (at least) a weekly basis.

As a creative person, I am very excited about the church plant. I love new things, new challenges, new opportunities to try something different. I like change too, when there is the possibility of seeing a fresh wind from God's creativity blow through our lives. On the other side of things, having been a part of a church plant before, I think there is plenty of things gleaned from the experience (both good and not so good). I look forward to leaning more towards the good on this church plant :). I suppose we will see how that works out!

On the personal side of things, one thing that I am excited about is that my family is excited. Myself, Carol, Jordan and Cody all are excited at the chance to be going on this new adventure. Jared seems to be somewhat hesitant about it, and as a rule is the kind of person who just doesn't like any change all that much. Thought recently, he has sounded more and more excited about the possibility of both old and new friends being involved. Overall, what we are all looking for is God's will and God's provision and blessing as we embark on this new chapter.

We seriously desire your prayers and insights as you think of us. Should you have the inclination to do so, please pray for us and the new church plant. If you feel God has given you a specific reflection to share with us, we'd love to hear it.

May His Kingdom come,

Kim