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Church description

In the Spring of 1996, several families gathered together to meet with a new church planter in the Huntsville, AL area. This group had been in the new Hampton Cove community for a while, and were hoping to get a new church home that could have a positive impact on this new community. Meanwhile, a young pastor from the Birmingham AL area had been sensing the call to plant a church. This meeting was when the two parts of our story came together, At this meeting, there was a clear excitement about what God was going to do in the years ahead. This group was small in numbers and soon began meeting in the home of John Tanner, the young church planter, and dreaming of the next steps in their journey together.

In early 1997, the group had grown a bit, and decided it was time to begin having public worship services. John Tanner's vision was to do church in a "different way". Over the previous few years he had been greatly influenced by the teachings and success of Willow Creek Community Church and Bill Hybles. This influence led to one of the most important decisions that this initial group could have made. They were going to offer a contemporary worship style (relatively unheard of at the time) with a huge emphasis on creating an incredible children's' ministry. It was the right decision.

With the goal of impacting the Hampton Cove community, they decided to meet in the one place that everyone in the community knew: the Elementary School. This location was great, and Cove Church quickly grew as new people were being touched by what God was doing. John's wife Kathy led the children's ministry, and created environments and experiences that the entire community talked about. John was preaching to reach people that may have become disillusioned with God and the church, and was very effective in doing just that. It was an exciting time to see lives changed.

With the growth came the larger goal of creating a more permanent worship and teaching environment. After a lengthy land search, they were able to acquire property almost exactly across the street from the Elementary School. The property was occupied by a farm house and a barn, and belonged to the McCurry family. The details for the purchase were worked out on the front porch of the farmhouse, and culminated when Mr. McCurry revealed the details of a dream that he recently had. In that dream, a former pastor of his came to him and told him that he should make his property available to this young church. These two dreams - Mr. McCurry's with his pastor, and Cove Church with their new home - became a reality soon after.

Even the vision for the building was a bit unusual. There would be a worship center, children's and youth spaces, but no adult classrooms. The second part of this new strategy would be to offer small discipleship groups that would meet in homes throughout the week instead of having the normal Sunday Morning classroom experience. This focus on small groups (now called Community Groups) was as instrumental as the decision to offer contemporary worship. It allowed the church to save a lot of money in construction costs, and to avoid ever becoming limited by facilities for the adult discipleship effort.

In the years since 1996, John Tanner has led Cove Church to continue to seek God's will and guidance, just as he did when that first small group was meeting in his home. Cove Church has grown to over 1300 in worship, but has not lost the sense of community that sparked the initial small group.

Even today, a small group meets regularly in John's house, but this small group is just one of about 60 that meet to seek God and His guidance for their lives.

Cove is now on a journey to impact more than just the Hampton Cove community. In August of 2011, we launched a campus in the Chase Community in northeast Huntsville. This is the first of many to come!

Our vision is to have a significant impact on the entire Tennessee River Valley through reproducing Authentic Christ-Centered Communities of faith. Our strategies are continuing to unfold and include multi-site and multi-venue ( things that sound just as odd as contemporary worship and small groups did in 1997!).

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