Spirit Song United Methodist Church

I haven’t written for awhile mainly because I’ve been waiting to report that we have a school site for our worship services to begin this fall. I was excited about the possibility of having the new high school to worship in. Our second choice was the elementary school.  Neither was being used by another church and I was just waiting to learn which one was going to work out.

Well, as it happened, neither worked out. We learned that three other churches were in line ahead of us for the high school and one of them decided to take it. The elementary school decided, surprisingly, that they were not going to allow a church to use their facility this next year, citing crowded conditions and a shortage of staff.

So here we are, less than four months away from our launch and with no apparent options left to us. Four months may seem like a long time but with school letting out in another week, our window for getting into a school in September is rapidly closing. Obviously I’m disappointed and more than a bit frustrated. One of the challenges of starting a new church in a new area of development is the lack of public space. Our target area encompasses over 40 square miles (two zip codes: 85382 & 85383) and in that target area there are just six schools. Except for the elementary school I just mentioned, all are currently being used by churches on Sunday mornings.

Another challenge for us (and for all the other new church starts) is the presence of two 10,000+ member mega-churches that draw from our target area. In visiting families over the course of the last nine months I found the vast majority who were already attending a church were going to one of those mega-churches. Because of that (and I’m sure there are other factors as well) most of the other church plants in our target area are struggling to grow. Two Baptist churches recently merged; an Episcopal church is still under 30 in worship after 2 years. It’s tough.

So, here we are. We have some major challenges in the months ahead. I will continue to explore every possible option and hopefully something good will come out of this. One thing I’ve learned is that when you don’t where to go, the one place you can go is “down on your knees.” That’s where I plan to spend a lot of my time over the next few weeks and months. I invite you to join me.

Blessings,

Steve

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 12:13 PM and is filed under General. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.