Editor’s Note: Jay Mudd is one of the featured church planters in 2025 Maguire State Mission Offering resources. The statewide 2025 offering goal of $1 million is earmarked to help reach the 16.7 million Florida residents who do not have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, with 100% of all receipts designated to help launch church plants in the state.
WINTER GARDEN—After seven years of successfully planting in one of the hardest areas of New England—Boston—Jay Mudd is now back in central Florida with a heart to multiply.
With a passion to “create environments that provide an opportunity for people to hear and respond to the love, grace and truth of God’s Word,” Mudd believes we should “never stop praying, dreaming and risking in order to position people and the church to have a front-row seat to seeing God do far more than we can think or imagine,” he said.
Strategically gathering at Hamlin Middle School in Winter Garden, Village Point Church is reaching the rapidly growing area of Horizon West, a master-planned community within Winter Garden in southwest Orange County.
Mentoring and training others
While in the trenches of church planting himself, Mudd is simultaneously mentoring and training the next generation of church planters and seeking to multiply gospel-preaching churches in the Sunshine State.
Understanding that Florida does not have enough local churches to serve its growing population, Mudd is continuously doing his part to train and multiply. It is understood that Florida Baptist churches need to be multiplying at a rate of 4% annually in order to effectively reach and serve growing communities. However, according to Send Network Florida, the current multiplying rate is 2.3%—highlighting a desperate need for more Florida Baptist churches.
“Christians should “never stop praying, dreaming and risking in order to position people and the church to have a front-row seat to seeing God do far more than we can think or imagine.””
Jay Mudd
church planter, Village Point Church, Winter Garden
“Whenever I am asked why we need more churches I always ask this question, ‘How many people do you know who do not go to church?” he said. “Why do we plant churches? For those people who you know personally who are not currently connected to a local church.”
Mudd is grateful for his Florida Baptist family who, through funds given to the Maguire State Mission Offering, become partners in church planting efforts throughout the state.
The need for local churches compels Mudd to actively coach and train a handful of church planters in the Florida Baptists’ Central region—Kenneth Ortiz in one of them.
More churches draw more people in
“I coach many of the planters in the area and know Kenneth Ortiz very well,” said Mudd. “He is a planter who is working very hard, has seen his share of adversity, and is doing a great job in the state.”
Previously serving as a professor and recruiter at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis and a pastor at Cities Church in St. Paul, Ortiz relocated from Minnesota to central Florida to plant Horizon City Church.
After gathering in homes for several months, the new church plant officially launched last October in south Winter Garden in a local elementary school. Now gathering at Cinépolis Cinemas, the almost one-year-old church plant continues to fix its eyes on Christ, Ortiz said.
Seeking to “make disciples who treasure Christ,” Horizon City Church seeks to be a “community of believers that treasures Jesus Christ together, finding satisfaction and happiness in him,” said Ortiz.
Horizon City Church champions expository preaching, building relationships among community residents, and growing a deeper relationship with Christ.
“What makes Horizon City different is the church’s high emphasis on being an ‘easy-entry community’ and giving people a simple way to get involved in the church, building new friendships and a deeper relationship with God,” he said.
Similar to Mudd, Ortiz chose central Florida—specifically Orange County—due to its rapidly growing population and the desperate need to multiply Bible-believing churches.
“I am thoroughly convinced, based on numerous studies and surveys, the probability of anyone attending church in a local community goes up significantly as there are more options for a church,” said Ortiz. “The more churches there are, the more likely it is that people will attend church. Someone asked me, ‘Does Winter Garden really need another church?’ Winter Garden needs another 25 churches!”
