By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
Hill Country Bible Church Steiner Ranch is now Lakeview Bible Church, and its new pastor, Eric Creekmore, preached his first live sermon on September 7.
For 16 years, HCBC Steiner Ranch was a campus of the much larger Hill Country Bible Church near Lakeline off RM 620 North. It was HCBC’s first venture into multi-site ministry, shared Michael Spooner. He was interim campus pastor during the transition from HCBC. He is now associate pastor of worship and families at Lakeview Bible.
“For the last 16 years, we’ve been sharing our resources as sort of one church in multiple locations, so we’ve been able to share finances and staff and just all the resources that go into making a church happen,” Spooner said.
HCBC had another church site in Leander. As both churches in Steiner and Leander matured over the years, they were becoming more self-sustaining and functioning like independent churches, he said.
“We have really benefited from being together for a long season, but we had just wrestled for years, I think, with how can we best reach and serve our local contextualized communities,” Spooner said.
In Steiner, the path to become independent has taken shape over the last couple of years. Spooner said the local campus had enough leadership, volunteers and staff to do well on its own.
Some people may wonder if something negative happened to bring about this change but Spooner said, “Not at all.”
“Our relationship with Hill Country has been, and is currently, fantastic,” Spooner said. “It seemed like this was the right time to do it.”
The church sits on a 30-acre site at 4310 N Quinlan Park Rd. Six years ago in September 2019, construction was complete on the $8 million, 25,000-square-foot building. Now the building and site has been given to Lakeview Bible.
“We’ve been equipped in a really significant way to do ministry here with no debt and such a tremendous gift of this building, and this property for nothing,” Spooner said. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper for them to give away such a big asset… displaying that sort of radical generosity. But the reality is, it’s more about serving the kingdom of God.”
Although Lakeview Bible did a nationwide search for its lead pastor, they ended up hiring Creekmore, who had been with HCBC Lakeline for the last seven years.
Creekmore has also served in pastoral roles in the Dallas area and was the Executive Director for the Association of Hill Country Churches.
Prior to entering full-time ministry, Creekmore served for twelve years in the U.S. Marine Corps, including two combat deployments as an F/A-18 pilot. He holds degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary and Drexel University.
Creekmore is married to Heather, and together they have four teenagers.
“He’s somebody that people know, he understands and knows who and what Hill Country has been, that I think also really has a heart for reaching our local community,” Spooner said.
Preaching is now live on campus rather than simulcasted from the main campus. Regular attenders range between 300-350 adults and another 100 to 150 kids and students.
“We’re just excited to get to come alongside families to help them grow spiritually, to help them grow in their relationships with one another and to really serve and build up our local community,” Spooner said.