Our Church History

A hanging Disco Ball

Sunday school was held in the bar! If you ever wondered why New Life has a hanging Disco Ball, it's one way to remind us of our beginnings in the K of C. In 2005, we even managed to go on another mission trip and spent hours filling freezer bags for that trip. Many different volunteers also helped me count Sunday offerings on Monday morning at one of the volunteer's home, I would take the cash deposit to the bank and then the rest to the tiny, rented Farm Bureau office, where our newly hired secretary, Cindy Sloan carried on the business there until a trailer was put in place on our property.

And that’s how it was before the Synod brought us a mission development minister by the name of Bill Stehr. We continued meeting at the K of C and became the Community of Hope and spent many happy months worshiping there. We started taking the steps to have our own church once again. Because of all the development in the eastern part of the county, the Synod wanted us to find something east of I-75. Several pieces of property were looked at until eventually, we found our spot on Fruitville Road. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because soon after the county informed us they wanted to make a Jug Handle at the intersection of Fruitville and Sarasota Center Boulevard and made us a deal to purchase the front of our property.

It was the beginning of many instances that helped us get closer to building our church. That was just one of the many Godwinks that we witnessed. We also had a connection with Mary House, a home in Bradenton for Women's Recovery from addictions. Pastor Carl was their spiritual leader. Because of her daughter's struggles, Mary Lou Mickey started this very needed ministry and came to our church. Our men even volunteered there when work was needed on that property. When the time came for the property to be sold, we were involved in that too and Mary Lou generously donated the proceeds of that sale to New Life. Such a blessing!

A dedicated group of men and women started working on our new property (and still come to work every Friday morning). As time went by, we held many Saturday flea markets there, even renting out space to other vendors, we cooked hot dogs and sold lunches and worked really hard to further our efforts to getting a building. At Christmas time, one of our favorite couples, the Downings, dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus and would stand at our entrance road to bring customers in, and Pastor Stehr would hand out information about our church to each car that came in. It truly was a joint effort!

We were doubly blessed with Pastor Stehr because along with him came his wife, Lola, who worked for a contractor and when the time came for actually starting our building, she was exactly what we needed to make sure everything was done the right way with the right people. It was not an easy road for sure as there were many obstacles to overcome, but God was in control and doors were opened and blessing upon blessing reminded us that this was God’s house for sure.

Rollie Vaughn, Dick and Gloria Lowe and many others went to work to create our beautiful cross. Rollie crafted the altar and the pulpit, a genius to be sure. Ron Coppinger was also a great bonus to meeting county requirements. While we were doing our best to get off mission status, we were still short of being self-supporting. In 2011, we reached out to the Mission Partner Program of the Lutheran Church to get some help and they responded with almost $38,000. Through all of this, the steering committee agreed and voted to tithe any gift money our church received in obedience to God.

In 2013, we held a special meeting to organize with a regular council needing to be elected, agreeing unanimously to extend a call to Pastor Stehr, and also explored the possibility of obtaining the beautiful wood carvings Franz Foster had made which were still in Holy Cross. We were told their price was $5,000 but through the providence of God and the benevolence of two of our members, they became ours, only because Andy Anthony went there and offered $2,000 for them which they accepted as they did not recognize him as a member of our group.

Early on, Pastor Marilyn Lewis came as a pastor in training for 4 months and was a tremendous blessing in so many ways, afterward filling the pulpit when Pastor Stehr would be away, along with Connie Struzik, our saxophone playing, preaching pastor. And we wouldn’t be the great creative church we are without the blessing of Cheryl Best, pianist, organist, choir director, actress, imaginative soul, I mean Best!

The passing years saw many changes. Because of possible confusion with Hope Church who had many directional signs along Fruitville Road we decided to change our name and New Life came into being. There were other changes, some trials, some celebrations, we were privileged to witness the baptism of Aunt Helen, the 100-year-old aunt of one of our seasonal members which brought tears to the eyes. Several musicians came and went and one left with some of our equipment! We are so blessed now with our glorious trumpeters Jim and Chris, who makes some mean pancakes!

We held a duck derby along the river our men made on our property, to raise money to ditch the ditch. In 2018, we burned our mortgage, no small feat for our little group but when God is in it, there are wonders to behold. We then took on a mortgage to fill in the ditch surrounding us. We did many outreaches to our community, vacation Bible schools, Habitat for Humanity, letters sent each week to neighbors, Pastor giving talks at Sun N Fun, collecting needed school supplies, socks and underwear for foster children, our rag doll ministry, our prayer shawl ministry which included various other needed items, going out into the neighborhood to witness, creating and selling a church cook book and just too many others to mention here.

We had a wonderful celebration for Pastor Stehr’s 40th ordination anniversary and were saddened when sometime later he announced his retirement. We had come a long way together! Then in January of 2022, we were privileged to witness the installation of Pastor Jeff Gross who is another one of God’s gift to us. We are so excited for many more blessings for New Life!