Last night for Heartland

It was a long, emotion-filled evening as Heartland bid good-bye to its founding pastor. Brian and Deni Sunderly are moving on to another church in the area. Heartland, as we know it, is blending with Cornerstone Community Church. We'll be in the same building. We'll just be sharing services and relationships with the folks at Cornerstone.

Last night we played three sets of music, dedicated four of the 14 babies who have been born in the Heartland congregation in the past five years, heard the pastors from Cornerstone speak and make us welcome, then sat down to a pot-luck dinner. After all, we're Baptist. Food MUST be involved or it just ain't an appropriate gathering. It's okay. We didn't dance.

So over the next few weeks we'll be phasing out the Saturday night services and Heartland's folks will find new churches to call home. Hopefully, a good number of them will settle into Cornerstone or CrossLife, our daughter church in Elkridge.

It's hard to say good-bye, but the evening was sweet. And so it goes ...