In March of 1994, Jimmie
and Lori Davidson were driving from Abingdon, where Jimmie had grown up
since 1964, when Jimmie brought up a familiar subject of conversation
with his wife. "Honey, somebody needs to start a church in Abingdon. A
different kind of church."
Throughout the
80's, this was a repeated comment as Jimmie and Lori made visits to
their hometown during their years in Kentucky and Texas. With each trip,
Jimmie saw how Abingdon was growing rapidly and he could see a need.
Never had it occurred to him that God just might use him and his family
to meet that need. At least not until that day in '94, when his wife
looked over at him and for the first time replied, "Why don't we do it? "It's amazing to me how I could not see the possibility that God may want us to plant a
church. It was always, "Somebody else should do it. That day, God spoke
through my wife Lori and opened my eyes." Jimmie's first reaction was,
"We can't do that!" The very next day at Grundy Baptist Church, he laid
face down in his study and asked God, "Do you want us to begin this new
work?"
 "My answer came with the joy I felt as I began to realize after all these years;
God had prepared us for this very moment." One thing was clear from the
very beginning; this was going to be a God thing. God was simply
inviting the Davidson’s to join him in what He
wanted to do in the region. "God's word to me in the very beginning was
this work would attract and reach thousands of people for Jesus Christ.
As Isaiah said, it would be like streams in the desert." Even though the young couple knew God was up to something, they had no idea what the new Church should look like.
Jimmie grew up in a traditional
Southern Baptist Church and graduated from a Baptist College and
Seminary. Jimmie knew only one way to do church until someone told him
about Saddleback in Southern California. "I asked, 'What's a
saddleback?' I soon found out that Saddleback was a
Purpose Driven Church committed to the Great Commandment and the Great
Commission of Jesus and doing church in a new and fresh way." When Jimmie
contacted the church, they sent him a tape on the story of Saddleback
and he cried through the whole message. God had given Pastor Rick Warren
his plan for our generation, and now Jimmie knew that God had the same
in mind for the church in Abingdon. “Literally the Lord told me to
follow the vision God had given Rick. This would be our mission and
vision and God’s plan for the new church”
Jimmie studied
the model of Saddleback Church for over six months, preparing him to do Church in a
different way based entirely on the principles found in Scripture. In
December 1994, an open house was held to invite the community to come
and hear the vision for this new kind of church. By March, there were 40
to 50 people preparing for Virginia Highlands Christian Fellowship's
first public worship service, to be held at the Coomes Recreation
Center. This small group hand-addressed over 8,000 letters to the
community, and Easter weekend 1995 brought 156 people in attendance at
the first worship service of Highlands Fellowship.
A few months later
they moved the Sunday services to Abingdon High School, where they
continued to grow until reaching an average attendance of over 700 in
2000. On Easter Sunday of 2000, they moved into their new 46,000
square-foot Worship Center with an attendance of 1,200 people. Highlands
is now a multi-site church which now averages over 3,200 in weekend
worship with multiple venues. and sites all over the region including three in Afghanistan. In 2005 Jimmie was given the honor of speaking at
Saddleback's 25th anniversary celebration at Angel’s Stadium in front of
35,000 members and attenders of Saddleback. On
Easter 2010 more than 8000 were in attendance and close to 500
decisions for Christ all on Highlands Fellowship’s 15th anniversary as a
church. The arena was Viking Hall where Highlands Fellowship broke the
30 year old record for attendance. At our Easter Egg drop after police
estimates of between 10 to 15 thousand in attendance. In the past 39
months alone over 1000 people have been baptized and almost 2000
have registered a decision to accept Jesus! Christmas Services 2011 we saw our largest attendance ever of over 10,000. Highlands Fellowship is now "one church with multiple locations" in Abingdon, Bristol, Johnson City, Kingsport, and Marion.
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