Over the last 18 years, God has greatly blessed our church. We started in December 2006 with just 6 people - Glenn, Denys, and their four kids - and have now grown to over 650 people in-person and another 120 people on our livestream each Sunday. A healthy church grows at a rate of 3-4% a year, and, historically, we’ve averaged 15% growth each year. Recently, however, God has changed our growth curve, and our attendance is up 30% over the same period last year.

More people than ever are finding us, checking us out, and telling us that they’re making LifePoint their church home. We thank God for all that He’s doing at our church. Meeting new people and growing our impact for Jesus is super exciting. We’re growing in all the key areas of the church – in our Gather (our worship attendance), in our Connect (the number of people attending a LifeGroup), and in our Serve (the number of ways that we’re reaching out and meeting
needs beyond our four walls, in our community and throughout the world).

However, with growth comes challenges, and, after building our new auditorium in 2020 and rebounding from COVID, we’ve started running out of room for parent and recovery groups and have found ourselves in need of greater Children’s Ministry space. As a result of all this momentum and growth, our church board – our Strategic Vision Team (SVT) –began looking at ways that we can maximize our property and make room for expanded family ministry. Expanding to the west side of our building is the only option that remains open to us on our current property.

Numerous alternatives were considered to address our church’s growth. Starting a satellite congregation, planting a church, and relocating to a new property were a few of the options. We would love for us to have a larger facility and worship space to
accommodate our growth, but the costs are prohibitive. The only option that’s most feasible and cost effective at this time involves maximizing our existing property.

God has blessed us with an excellent property in a highly-visible location, and, after our 2020 project increased our Sunday morning worship capacity, we knew it was likely that our next pressure point would involve connection space and family ministry. The west wing
expansion addresses these needs at a considerable cost savings over the alternatives.

After numerous discussions with the SVT, we approached the township and asked if doing one last expansion on our property was feasible. The good news is that the townshipgave us positive feedback regarding the project and even approved a variance that we’dneed before we’d be able to start any construction. We then put the project out for bid and began working with a design-build firm. We now have a signed construction contract and are excited to break ground!

We cannot stress enough that a building is not an end in and of itself – it isn’t some monument to us – but is, instead, an integral tool that God uses to accomplish His mission. And this expansion will have many benefits, including: a much improved and more centralized children’s space, more room for our youth and young adults, greater collaboration space for our staff to work, and more rooms for ministry. This project will help us to accomplish our mission to “Connect people to Jesus and one another as we Gather, Connect, and Serve.”

There are 2 main ways you can help with this project.

1. Pray! Pray for increased impact for ministries through utilizing our building. Pray for our continually growing staff as they lead a growing church family. You can even pray for the project to finish ahead of schedule and under budget!

2. Give. It is a simple reality that projects like this require money to be completed. We will never pressure anyone to give - instead, we believe that Jesus' mission matters, and we simply invite everyone to participate in that mission. Our church has always stepped up at just the right time and practiced radical generosity, and that generosity has made a huge impact on people's lives. This project is just another step towards increasing that impact. If you would like to contribute to this project, click here and select "Ingathering to Ingathering: West Wing Expansion Fund".