A Miraculous History
In 2010, Tony Lantz, the Lead Pastor of Life Church in Emporia was going about his typical Wednesday schedule when out of nowhere he heard God speak the words, “your church will plant two churches.” Tony kept these words under his hat for about six months before finally sharing them with the other elders of his church. He had never had any intentions of church-planting and even told the Assemblies of God leadership a few years before that he had no interest in planting churches.
Brad and Candy Good
However, in the meantime, a young family began attending Tony’s church in 2011 by the name of Brad and Candy Good. Brad had once committed his life to the Lord at the church back in 1997, when Tony was the youth pastor, but had kind of strayed away from God for a time. When Brad brought his wife and three kids back to church, they committed their lives fully to the Lord, which included a call to ministry. So, in 2011, Tony and Brad made an agreement. Tony agreed to bring Brad on as an intern to train Brad and Brad agreed to begin school through Global University and serve in different roles at the church.
An Assemblies of God Pastor Conference
A year later, Brad was near completion of his first level of ministry training. He also began to attend the minister’s conferences for the Assemblies of God ministers. One particular conference was at Evangel Assembly of God in Wichita. During that conference, Tony and the rest of his staff got separated at the beginning of the service. Brad and the other pastors were sitting on one side of the conference and Tony couldn’t find them, so he ended up sitting with a friend on the other side of the auditorium.
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Video Projection Screen
During that service, one of the leaders of the assembly wanted to talk to the ministers about creating fellowship among pastors with what are now called Regional Connect Groups. During that talk they put a map of Kansas on the screen. However, that is not what caught Tony’s or Brad’s attention. On that map there was a perfect circle around Morris County. God spoke to both Tony and Brad, separately, about having Brad plant a church in Council Grove. So after church, Brad walked up to Tony and said, “I really need to talk to you about something when we go to dinner.” And Brad said, “I really need to talk to you as well. I feel like God spoke something to me too.” When they left Evangel Assembly, the pastors began talking about how they both felt like God wanted a church in Council Grove and both agreed that Brad was supposed to pastor it. It was a miracle. To make matters even more miraculous, when Brad and Tony got home, they were trying to figure out how the other board members would respond to such a large assignment. But when they pulled in the parking lot, one of the board members named Forrest Peterson was standing in the parking lot. So the pastors all approached Forrest and got no more than a few sentences in and Forrest said, “Have you guys ever considered planting a church in Council Grove?” Tony and Brad couldn’t believe it. It was obvious that the Lord wanted a church there.
A New Church Is Born. And at first they met in the bakery downtown…then Katy Train Depot…then they bought Doc’s Autobody at 24 N. Union..
