Editor’s Observe: A number of PCA church buildings have not too long ago moved into church buildings beforehand utilized by different congregations. Within the course of, every congregation has witnessed the blessings of a bodily worship area and encountered distinctive alternatives to serve their communities. This week we’ll function their tales of God’s provision. Learn the earlier installments here and here.
The Desk Church: Discovering House in a Secular Group
The Table Church in Lafayette, Colorado, was planted in 2016 below the oversight of the Rocky Mountain Presbytery, after being despatched by an Acts 29 church in close by Boulder. For eight years, the congregation of The Desk met in rented areas like an arts nonprofit and an area highschool.
In August 2024 the congregation, led by Pastor Brad Edwards, moved right into a church constructing they’re renting from one other congregation. The expertise highlighted for Edwards the significance of a church’s bodily area and the challenges of church planting in post-Christian communities.
Because it did for a lot of church buildings, COVID upended church life and worship for The Desk. Authorities restrictions made gathering tough, and neighboring companies had been unwilling to lease area to a church that, to a secular metropolis, appeared to be assembly unnecessarily. The Desk went 18 months with out gathering in individual.
Following the pandemic, Edwards ultimately discovered a small, Christian-owned venue the place the congregation worshiped for nearly three years. However the lease was “so costly for us, and nowhere close to masking the payments for them,” Edwards stated. Due to this, the venue’s homeowners didn’t renew The Desk’s annual lease however supplied a month-to-month lease whereas they labored to promote the constructing.
On Might 1, 2024, the constructing’s new homeowners gave Edwards and his congregation 90 days’ discover: they not wished to lease to The Desk. Thus the church was compelled to discover a new area.
Months earlier, Edwards had reached out to the pastor of an area church, Catch the Hearth Boulder, to inquire about renting the church’s second constructing. On the time, two different congregations had been utilizing the constructing. After Edwards discovered that his church was shedding its worship area, he known as the pastor of Catch the Hearth once more, to no avail.
The pastor known as Edwards again 5 weeks later asking whether or not he was nonetheless . One of many congregations utilizing the constructing was transferring out, and the opposite congregation, a small, Spanish-speaking congregation, couldn’t cowl the lease by themselves.
Edwards had investigated 11 different choices earlier than connecting with Catch the Hearth. He recounted one notably discouraging rejection from a movie show: the theater solely confirmed motion pictures one week every month, and the constructing was closed the remainder of the month.
“They usually had been like, ‘No, we’re good. We’re not concerned with renting our constructing to a church at the moment.’ So it was dangerous,” Edwards stated.
Nonetheless, after just a few renovations this summer season, The Desk has been blessed by their transfer into Catch the Hearth’s additional constructing. By Edwards’ rely, solely 4 church buildings in Lafayette even have Protestant congregations assembly in them. “It’s uncommon to be in a church constructing as a church right here, and it’s been a present,” he stated.
The rarity of worshiping in a church constructing owes, partly, to the character of The Desk’s environment. Northern Colorado doesn’t have venues for giant group indoor gatherings outdoors of faculties. Edwards associated, “Once you transfer out right here, you’re meaning to spend as a lot time as attainable within the nice open air.”
Edwards additionally famous that the group has an anti-institutional, “hyper non secular” bent: earlier than beginning The Desk, Edwards drove previous extra cults than church buildings on his solution to the Boulder church who despatched them to plant.
Within the midst of such an setting, The Desk holds “a theological imaginative and prescient of hospitality and making an attempt to succeed in our neighbors in a spot that’s extraordinarily under-churched,” Edwards stated. The brand new constructing provides many alternatives for hospitality. Although the church misplaced just a few households by means of the method of transferring, Edwards stated church attendance is significantly increased now than it was through the preliminary post-pandemic gatherings. By means of their not too long ago acquired constructing, The Desk has began internet hosting weekly night occasions like Bible research.
And Edwards stated The Desk has developed a “fantastic working relationship” with the Spanish-speaking congregation that co-rents their constructing. The population of Lafayette is greater than 16% Hispanic or Latino. Edwards has lengthy prayed for alternatives to work together with the Hispanic group, and within the reward of The Desk’s new area, that prayer has been answered.
“I used to be praying that God would simply give us an area that we wouldn’t should load out and in of a trailer each week. I wasn’t even fascinated about prayers we had been praying years prior about how we may have a pure alternative to intersect with this a part of our group,” Edwards stated.
The Desk’s seek for area and their current transfer have prompted Edwards to contemplate the importance of bodily area. The church just isn’t a constructing, true. However when a church doesn’t have an reasonably priced, reliable area for weekly worship gatherings, it places a pressure on the congregation and its management.
“We dramatically underestimate how potent of a catalyst a constructing is within the day-to-day life and formation of a congregation,” Edwards stated.
Property, Edwards holds, is “an enormous blind spot” for the PCA and church planting basically, a blind spot that may require creativity to handle.
“The extra post-Christian a spot is, the extra completely important property shall be to a church plant’s long-term viability, and the more durable it is going to be to amass.”
