Woodland launches new Parrish campus

EAST COUNTY — Aaron Sherrell sits at a newly opened coffee shop outside Woodland — The Community Church’s sanctuary and glances through a window toward a white trailer parked outside.

“That’s Woodland Parrish right there,” he says, grinning.

Sherrell, Woodland’s youth pastor, soon will lead a new venture for Woodland — the launch of Woodland Parrish, a satellite campus that formally starts services at 10:45 a.m. Feb. 9 at Buffalo Creek Middle School, 7320 69th St. E., Palmetto.

Services will be an extension of Woodland’s main campus on State Road 70 with teachings by its senior pastor, the Rev. Tim Passmore, broadcast live on a 16-by-10-foot projection screen.

Sherrell will serve as Woodland Parrish’s campus pastor.

“Ours is to be an exact extension of here,” Sherrell said of the campus. “The preaching will be the same.”
Sherrell will be responsible for shepherding the new Parrish congregation.

“I’m excited,” Sherrell said. “I want to see people come through our doors, but I also want to see people partner with us to love on our community.”

Since Jan. 5, Sherrell and a 30-person volunteer team from Woodland have prepared for the Feb. 9 launch of Woodland’s satellite campus by practicing set up and tear down each week.

More than 100 people attended a preview service held Feb. 2.

Sherrell says services feature casual dress, modern music and programming for children and youth.

Josh Martin, Woodland’s associate children’s pastor, and Mike Wilder, Woodland’s children’s pastor, will oversee the children’s program; they have overseen an after-school program at Virgil Mills Elementary School since October.

Sherrell already has met with representatives of the Parrish Civic Association, a group dedicated to improving and advocating for the Parrish community, to brainstorm on how to foster a better sense of community in Parrish, and also to see how the church can support the organization with its efforts.

Woodland Parrish already has agreed to provide volunteers for an event the civic association plans to hold in the spring, for example, Sherrell said.

Woodland began ministering to the Parrish community about three years ago, shortly after Sherrell joined the church’s leadership team.

“We were looking for a community event to do on a large scale,” said Sherrell, who started at Woodland in summer 2011. “I had known about Parrish and known about the need for a church (there).”

Leaning on his time spent helping start a church in Las Vegas, Sherrell suggested Woodland replicate an event he’d helped with before — an egg drop by helicopter.

Around Easter the following year, Woodland organized a similar event with no idea of how the Parrish community would respond.

More than 3,000 people showed up to participate. Last year, 7,000 people attended.

“People wanted to see (Woodland) be part of the community,” Sherrell said. “We began the process of extending Woodland to Parrish — tested the waters through surveys and talking to people at events.”
Sherrell said he wants the new campus to be a church created for the community.

“We’re very excited,” he said. “Our goal is not to have transplants from the main campus. We hope for a large turnout the first week and to see it grow.”

For more information on Woodland Parrish, visit gowoodland.com.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].