How to Move a Church
By Glenna Marshall
Have you ever tried to move a church?
Our church has a unique story that involves a merge between a predominantly white church and a predominantly black church to form a gospel-centered, multiethnic church that is committed to faithful exposition of the Word and incarnational ministry in our community. The merge resulted in the ownership of two properties—one large and mostly isolated facility on the edge of town, and a smaller building in a poor, underserved neighborhood. For the nearly three years since our merge, we’ve met in the larger facility. But, the Lord has given our merged body of believers the opportunity to sell our large property and building, purchase land in that poor neighborhood, and temporarily meet in our other smaller, property while we build a new facility where we’ll both worship and open our doors to the neighborhood with after-school programs, job training, and an emergency shelter location, among other things.
What we’ve done is pretty crazy, to be honest. We sold a really nice, large facility because we couldn’t serve the community and reach them with the gospel while being so far away from them. So we moved. We went to them. But, that’s not what this post is about. This post is about moving. A church. A whole church.
Let me tell you, it has taken months of work. Our church members have given weeks of hard, sweaty labor to clean, pare down, sell, clean, organize, clean, move furniture, unload furniture, move more furniture, clean, pare down, set up, clean. It has been an ongoing process that could not be done without the whole church pitching in in whatever way they could. The original congregation that was housed in that large building has been there for nearly sixty years, so you can imagine the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the years. We have constantly circled back to the question, “Do we need this?” Most of the time, we don’t.
Working together as a congregation towards this goal of temporarily downsizing and permanently relocating has been interesting to watch as a pastor’s wife. What we’re doing would not work if the church didn’t believe in the vision of the leadership. Our pastors have communicated the need for sharing the gospel of Jesus with all people on a weekly basis. They have preached through Scripture faithfully, week in and week out. They have put their own sweat and prayer and passion into the vision they presented to the church. And, I’ve watched our people take up the vision, compelled by the call to take the gospel of Christ where few are hearing it in our community. Taking up that vision has translated into hard work, lots of hard work. But what’s more, the work involved in bringing that vision to fruition has knit us together. Besides the overall response of work in moving the church, I think this is what has surprised me the most—the fellowship born of serving together.
Last week, on our last day of ownership of the large, edge-of-town property, we had a workday scheduled to finish moving everything out of the building. It rained buckets, which didn’t help things, but I won’t soon forget standing in a large cleaning closet packing up cleaning supplies and tossing old vacuum parts while chatting with the women who worked with me. We laughed and made quick work of the closet, filling bags for the trash and boxes for the move. Simliar pockets of work were taking place all over the building. I also worked in an office closet with some women where we made decisions about what to save and what to toss, filling up boxes for storage and bags for the dumpster, calling our teenaged sons to carry things out into the rain. The men loaded trailers and trucks, making trip after trip to the dumpster, the storage unit, the relocation property. It was a push to finish before the realtor came for closing the next morning. We were a hot, weary, sweaty group. There were a few stressful moments and a question of whether we would actually finish in time, and then—we were done. Done with that property, at least. At the relocated property, we had more workdays scheduled to prepare for Sunday services. Again, I found myself linking arms with church members and unpacking boxes, cleaning rooms, taking out trash, making decisions for storage. We laughed and chatted, made decisions, took ownership of our smaller building. We’re not yet done, and there are hours and hours of work that church members have quietly put in (and will put in) that I’ll never even know about.
On Saturday, we set up for our first corporate worship service, and when I sat at the piano on Sunday morning for the first worship song, the force of voices in that smaller building nearly knocked me off the piano bench. I swallowed a knot in my throat because here we are in a smaller, different building in a different part of town, and in some ways, it feels really, really different. My husband had preached in that other building for seventeen years. This has to feel odd to the ones who were there longer than that. But when I saw the smiling faces of my beloved church family filing in and packing into the chairs, I knew that God had done something good here. When I heard their voices loud and strong singing praises to the Lord, I knew God had done something good here. When I heard one of our pastors preach Titus 2 in Spirit and truth, I knew God had done something good here. When I saw the kids in the neighborhood walk into our little building and felt them hug me around the waist and ask if I’d come get them next week, I knew God had done something good here. Is doing something good here. The church is never a building or a property or a set of traditions and memories. The church is a body, a family, a people knit together through Christ. We can move, relocate, shift our vision, share the gospel, work together, sing together, pray together, and grow together because Christ has made us His own. He has united us to Himself and to one another. No matter where we meet, we are His.
So how do you move a church? Together.
Grace Bible Fellowship, I love you.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence: Why God is Always Enough (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World (Crossway).
Editors Note: This article was first published at glennamarshall.com