History
Hey everyone-
My name is Jeffrey Lavalette and I'm the Lead Pastor of Glass City Church. This whole thing began back in 2008 when I was living and ministering in Indianapolis, Indiana. My wife Ashley and I both felt a calling to return to Toledo, Ohio (where I was born and raised) to plant a new church that would love the city, tell everyone about Jesus, disciple believers, raise up leaders, and most of all glorify God. I made several trips to Toledo and spoke with different area pastors about our mission, and over the course of a few months, God confirmed our calling and made provision for us to relocate to the Glass City.
During this time I was also blogging about this crazy idea of planting a church in Toledo, and i received some feedback from people who were interested in our mission. We teamed up with a few other people at the end of 2008 and began studying the Song of Solomon as a means of strengthening our marriages for what would certainly be a challenging time ahead.
From there, we began meeting in a friend's basement on Sunday nights for musical worship, preaching, prayer, and fellowship. Around March of 2009 we finally gave our church the name "Glass City Church," as Toledo has historically been known as the Glass City for its innovation and production of different types of glass. Also, around that time, my wife and I saw an indie film called "Glass City" at the Collingwood Arts Center and we were both burdened to make the name of Christ known to everyone in the city.
Over the next few months we began to grow slowly through nothing more than word of mouth and a few clever status updates on Facebook. Finally we were too big for the basement, so we moved to a chapel located inside a retirement home in Ottawa Hills. It was free, and most of the residents were nice to us, so we stayed for awhile.
Then in October of 2010 things were getting a little tight in the chapel, so we started asking God for what was next. There was a growing desire in my heart to really concentrate on the South Toledo area, and we were presented with the opportunity to meet at Plate 21, a locally-owned coffeehouse. The owners are awesome, and a few of the employees were avid Glass City Church attenders. On December 12, 2010 we held our first Sunday morning service and it's been all gravy ever since.
Please feel free to email me at jefflavalette@gmail.com with any questions you have about our church, Jesus, the Bible, or who has the best pizza in Toledo.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Jeffrey Lavalette