Monday Morning Insights

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    One Building… Three DIFFERENT Churches

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    If this story had any more twists, it would be a corkscrew.

    Here’s the straight scoop:

    In 1966, Modestans Bill Steenburgh and his brother, J.H. Steenburgh, were looking for a building for their small congregation that had begun the year before as a home Bible study. They bought a nearby church at 516 Carver Road from Bible Baptist Church, which needed a larger facility.

    The property was a house that had been converted into a chapel. The Steenburghs called their new church the Carver Road Church of God.

    Over the years, they bought the surrounding five or six lots and expanded the church.

    In 1994, Bill Steenburgh’s son, Marlin, took over as pastor. Eight years later, in 2002, Marlin’s son took over the church pulpit.

    “We changed the name to Family Christian Center,” Pastor Dean Steenburgh said.

    And then things got interesting.

    The church continued to grow and needed a larger facility. Bible Baptist Church, in the meantime, experienced a downturn in its membership.

    Bible Baptist leaders called Steenburgh at Family Christian Center after the latter put up a “For Sale” sign.

    One thing led to another, and in November, Bible Baptist bought back its original location on Carver Road, and Family Christian Center bought Bible Baptist’s larger church at 1901 W. Rumble Road.

    Family Christian brought two other congregations with it. Victory In Praise, led by Pastor Tylos Jackson, meets Sundays at 8:30 a.m. Slavic Church of God Modesto, led by Pastor Iliad Polovin, holds its service at 2:30 p.m. Sundays. It’s a good fit for Family Christian, which holds its worship service at 11 a.m.

    “There’s a real need in the area for church space,” Steenburgh said. “The VIP church was a new church plant. They didn’t have the money to go into a warehouse, set it up and get it going. They started with a handful of people. They have about 225 now.

    “The Slavic church has been with us for about 12 years. They’re with us for life. They prefer a Sunday afternoon worship time.”

    Steenburgh said he’s also talking with a Filipino pastor about starting a new church that would meet late Sunday afternoon.

    “If it’s ‘sanctuary,’ why shouldn’t it be used all day?” he asked.

    “It’s just been a great friendship. We’re mostly a Caucasian (congregation) and VIP is mostly black. It’s been pretty neat. They come to our special events and we go to theirs.

    “VIP has a Tuesday night Bible study. We have a Wednesday night Bible study. Slavic Church has a Thursday night Bible study. (Our facility) is used almost every day.”

    As for his own church, which numbers about 180, Steenburgh said there are no plans to move again anytime soon. Instead, church leaders are talking with architects about expanding the facility.

    And he has a couple of sons in their 20s who may keep the family pastoring tradition going into the fourth generation.

    SOURCE:  The Modesto Bee

    Here's an interesting story about how three churches share one building. It's kind of confusing; but a cool story none the less. Actually, I think this used to be more common than it is today (churches sharing buildings). Do you know of any churches in your community that share a facility? How's that working for them?

    Comments

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    1. BrentH on Thu, August 16, 2007

      Sounds like a great stewardship of resources and laying aside of egos.  I hope we’ll see more cooperation like this among churches.

    2. Jonathan K. on Thu, August 16, 2007

      There is a building on the south side of Oklahoma City that has 3 different sanctuaries and has at least 6 or 7 different congregations that meet there.  Its called the “Multi-Church Center,” and you can check out their website at http://www.multichurchcenter.org/

    3. Matt Payne on Thu, August 16, 2007

      We are a one year old church plant in Beaverton, OR (Portland suburb).  One of our supporting churches is a 36 year old church that has a building in the same area and they have given us office space and let us use their facility for activities during the week. We don’t have a youth group yet so we send our kids to their Wednesday night group and next month we start sharing a secretary.  This Fall we will do a monthly kids production at their building on Saturday nights and in January we launch a 2nd campus and will meet on Sunday nights in their building.  They have been a tremendous blessing to us and the partnership is working well.  Communication is the key!

    4. Jan on Thu, August 16, 2007

      We’ve shared our facilities in every church we’ve been in.


      I think it is good stewardship to think beyond our own congregation.


      Right now we have an Hispanic church sharing our facility.


      We try to remind our members that our building and the things it contains are just things that God has provided for the work of ministry.


      It makes sense that we should get as much as possible use out of them for God’s work.


      I have seen people get testy when they get possessive and lose focus.


      I even heard a woman ask if the Korean church slated to share our building would “use our toilet paper.”


      It was pretty sad!  But for the most part building sharing has been a positive experience for us, both as the group doing the sharing, or the group coming in to use a building.

    5. Jim in NJ on Fri, August 17, 2007

      We are a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in South Jersey and have shared our church with a Slavic Evangelical Church for at least 8 years. On the whole it has been a positive experience for both congregations. We have two services in the morning and they meet in the afternoon. They also have meetings on Friday evenings. They make a contribution regularly to help cover expenses and overhead. Although they purchased land for their own church several years ago, no building plans have been announced. Of course before agreeing to host their church,  our Senior Pastor met with their pastor to ensure that we agreed on at least the essential doctrines.

    6. James on Fri, August 17, 2007

      We currently lease (at a very affordable price) space from a local Presbyterian church, as does a Spanish Pentecostal congregation.  It has worked our very well and has given us space we simply could not have afforded otherwise.  It’s been a real Godsend.


      We’ve also had surprisingly few hiccups considering three churches are using the same building, sometimes simultaneously.

    7. Fred McQueen on Mon, August 27, 2007

      I would love to find a church with whom we could share space. We had shared the facilities of one church after we started 5 years ago, but they became very expensive and we were only holding one service there a week. (They wanted us to pay $1600/mo. for Sunday only!)


      Since then, we have used vacant retail space, and currently rent in an office complex next to a large church. They started out in the same space. I think this is great stewardship as well, and frankly, I would rather invest our resources into people.

    8. Victoria on Tue, August 28, 2007

      Oh cool—gotta love it.  This is the best thread I have seen here!  We are to be “one”, and what better way?  When I was in the Navy, I attended a Nazarene Church in Washington DC that had an English, Spanish, French Creole for the Laotian refugees we sponsored, and deaf congregations.  The deaf had a section up front in the English service where an interpreter from Galludet served.  We had some real fun when the “Unity” services rolled around every quarter and we tried squeezing all the folks in at the same time.  It was fun to watch the sermon as it got translated into each language.  when we sang the hymns, you could hear all the languages going at once!


      I now attend a Messianic Synagogue that rents space from a Church of God that has both English and Spanish congregations.  Their pastor has spoken occasionally in our services, and our Rabbi spoke at their services just last Sunday!  Because we need the building mostly on Friday nights and Saturday, and they meet mostly on Sundays, it is not too hard.  On Wednesdays, the main congregation has the sanctuary, we have the fellowship hall, and the Spanish have the youth rec room.  Some of our Spanish folk attend some of their Spanish functions, and our Hebrew and Davidic Dance classes are shared by all—in addition to being attended by some folks from a Messianic Synagogue in another nearby city.  In addition, all three congregations share bus outreaches, and missions to disaster areas and local First Nations’ Tribes—as well as many interdenominational functions in the local area.  Isn’t it great that the Lord knows His Name in every language?

    9. tactical scopes on Tue, November 04, 2008

      I think that this is one way to increase the welfare of the church. Real estate has always been a very profitable investment. Owning a church, you can donate its space on very favorable terms, receiving divinendy. Thus, initially invested in the church, you quickly recoup all expenses and exit at a good return on investment. These funds can be directed to improve conditions for people belonging to a church. Business for the benefit of service to God

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