Turning Point began in January 2003. The founding pastor, Andy Wood, was a staff member at Lubbock’s largest church and planted TPCC following several years of fruitful ministry at Trinity Church. Like many church plants, the congregation moved around to different locations in its early years including a local science museum, funeral home, a wedding chapel, and a church building that was not utilized on Sunday mornings. The congregation began with a core of about 200 people and steadily began to root in the community building a base of 400-600 people who would call Turning Point home in the church’s first four years. In 2007, Turning Point’s leadership caught a vision to purchase a 15-acre cotton field “way out” on the south edge of Lubbock and plant the church’s roots at the intersection of Quaker Ave and 114th St. At the time, Quaker Ave was a two-lane country road that seemed to lead to nowhere, and 114th St was a dirt road. But the vision to see a thriving congregation at this spot proved prophetic. Today the intersection of Quaker and 114th is anything but “in the middle of nowhere.” That intersection is one of the busiest hubs in our city, drawing thousands of people every day to Lubbock’s newest Walmart Supercenter or the super popular HEB grocery market or one of the many other restaurants and businesses situated along this six-lane intersection. While we have recently updated and upgraded the capacity of Turning Point’s original facility, it has proven to be a great home for our faith family the last 15 years. And, with the church located within Lubbock Cooper School District, the second fastest growing district in Texas, we continue to be situated in a growing sector of our city. The district’s second high school is currently being built a couple of miles south of the church’s property on Quaker to accommodate 20,000 new homes scheduled to be built in this remaining decade. In 2010, the founding pastor left Turning Point and new chapter of ministry began for the church. One of the original members of Turning Point described this transition in the following way:

“Our early years were our founding years, but the next season was our foundational years.” John Wagner served as Sr. Pastor during this next season and he began using his administrative skills to dig in deeper, strengthening the congregation in every way. John led the church to achieve stability in its finances and grow in its generosity which has had a continuing influence on Turning Point’s capacity to do ministry. It was in this foundational season that the church turned its focus outward to missions in both global and local contexts. Mission teams were sent out to Central and South America as well as to Kenya. On the home front, some of the expressions of compassion that were adopted in this season like the annual Thanksgiving meal donations or the Angel Tree gift initiative for children of incarcerated parents remain a part of the church’s generous mission DNA. During this chapter the church locked in on it’s sense of purpose, it is framed this way: “Changed lives. Period.” The congregation has caught that missional wave and narrows all that we do along that single objective – raising up followers of Jesus whose lives are marked by change. During this period the church grew from its base of 400-600 people to a church with 800-1000 in weekly attendance. At the beginning of 2018, Pastor John returned to his home church to succeed his mentor in ministry and become the Sr. Pastor at Epic Life Church in New Jersey. This opened the door for the leadership of Chuck Angel to serve as Sr. Pastor. Having served as a pastor of church plants and churches in revitalization mode, Chuck brought a new set of building skills for a new season at Turning Point. As one elder framed it: “John dug deeper so that Pastor Chuck could build higher.” Allen Weathers, who served under all three of Turning Point’s pastors made this observation about this third chapter of the church’s life: “We are in a new season of accessible relational engineering – which is accelerating the growth. The leadership has forged a sense of connection and competency both of which has established an amazing level of trust. Things are going up fast, but people trust it and are with it.”

Within the first 18 months, the church moved over the 1,000 mark consistently for the first time in its history resulting in filling its two worship services. Plans were made to go to a new three service format on Sundays… then COVID happened. Turning Point’s response to the covid crises was to learn and adapt as quickly as possible. As soon as we returned to in-person services, we implemented the previous three service plan, but the motive had shifted from – needing space to needing it for distancing. The Lord gave tremendous favor post Covid. In 2021-2022 the church grew in attendance, in baptisms, in youth ministry and that three-service plan was once again necessary due to seating capacity. Today the church averages 1,300 -1,500 for Sunday’s three services. We have just completed a renovation project that allowed us to add additional seats to our existing auditorium giving us a capacity for up to 1700 in our three-service format. Exploration is now underway for determining the next step for making room for more people at Turning Point. However, one of the discoveries of Turning Point during covid was the realization that we are underdeveloped in our discipling plan and capability. We overly rely on the Sunday worship experience. We are passionate about revising our capacity to deliver a life-change pathway that utilizes smaller groups, technology, and more accessible mentoring to develop Christ followers who are marked by changed lives. It is our driving purpose in this next season to figure out a way to become elite at making disciples.