Influence: What were your greatest challenges planting a church in Tampa?

Aaron Burke: My wife, Katie, and I moved to Tampa without knowing anyone in the city. We had a dream from God, but no people to serve. Another local pastor told us the area was a “graveyard for church plants.” Every obstacle ended up being an opportunity for God to show up. We walked the community for hours asking God to give us the city. It was the most trying time in our life and marriage, but God was faithful through it all.  

How did you engage the local community when you didn’t know anyone?

We used two major tools to help us meet people: social media and our local chamber of commerce. I joined our local chamber and went to several networking meetings a week. I would always introduce myself at the meetings and try to get to know as many people as I could. I would ask questions about their lives. As soon as they asked me about my life and career, I would talk about my vision to launch a life-giving, dynamic church in our community. Out of 600 members in our local chamber of commerce, we were the only church, and I was the only pastor. This gave me an amazing opportunity each week to share my faith and invite people to the church. The chair of the chamber board, along with many others, came to Radiant on our opening Sunday. She met Jesus, and Radiant has transformed her life and family. She now serves every week on our dream team.

How have you used social media as a tool to reach your area?         

Radiant Church was started with a mission to meet people where they are, and currently everyone is “online.” We spent a substantial portion of our launch budget reaching the community through social media. Our goal was to create interesting and sharable content to engage the community and eventually drive them to our website. Once they were on our website, our mission and opportunities to attend were made clear for them to see. I would guess that between one-third and one-half of our entire launch team was recruited through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Share a story of a church member coming to Christ through this unique outreach.         

A local realtor, Chad, was going through a tough season in life when our Facebook ad popped up on his mobile device. He had not attended church for 20 years and decided to give it one more try. He surrendered his life to Jesus that first Sunday and has been involved ever since. He now serves as our head usher, and he just got engaged to a woman at the church. I am officiating his wedding next month.

Aaron Burke is the lead pastor of Radiant Church in South Tampa, Florida. This article was originally printed in the June/July issue of Influence. For more print content, subscribe here.