March 14, 2009 by Adrianna Janovich 0 comments

Posted in: Media Coverage

People, not place, make the church

by Adriana Janovich
Yakima Herald-Republic

 

SELAH, Wash. — There's a new church in Selah.

But don't look for another building with a steeple and a cross.

When Harvest Community Church officially started earlier this month, it joined the growing ranks of churches without buildings of their own.

At least three such churches have formed in the Yakima Valley in the past seven years, meeting for worship in high schools and other buildings. Sometimes called churches on wheels -- because they often store equipment in travel trailers during the week -- they are part of a nationwide trend. "It's not just happening here in Yakima," says John Schubert, senior pastor of Sun Valley Church, a portable church in East Valley. "There's literally thousands of churches in America doing this now."

Six years ago on Sunday, Schubert founded Sun Valley Church with 75 adults, plus their children, and one weekly service. Today, his church offers two Sunday services and has more than 200 members. It meets at East Valley High School.

            "Labor is required," Schubert says. "You can't set up and stay set up.

"Another con is the perception. It's kind of like: Are you really a church? Or, what's going on there? There's some skepticism that might come from the community about what we're doing."

            The main advantages are economic, which is why many new churches, including church "plants," or outgrowths of established churches, opt to start out as rollaway churches.

"Churches are growing and expanding, and the church planting movement is gaining momentum," Schubert says. "Buying $40,000 or $60,000 worth of equipment is a lot cheaper than buying a $600,000 building. You put your money into people and not buildings."

            The area's newest portable church, a plant of Yakima's West Side Baptist Church, has been holding worship services since mid-January, giving its leaders plenty of time to get into the rhythm and routine of packing and unpacking their church on wheels.

            Harvest Community convenes in the Selah Civic Center, where the pastor plans to continue meeting the rest of the year, if not longer.

"We really want to build our people first," says 36-year-old Pastor Jason Williams.

Williams had been on staff at West Side Baptist, the plant's "mother church," for nearly 11 years before organizing the new church. Plans for Harvest Community had been in the works for about a year.

            "They're basically copying our model, which is good, I think," Schubert says.

Like Harvest Community, his church was also a plant of West Side Baptist, part of the Conservative Baptist Northwest association of churches. It became financially independent within three years of its inception. That's Harvest Community's goal, too.

"We want to move as quickly as possible from a daughter church to a sister church," says Williams.

            Like Sun Valley Church, Harvest Community buys its equipment from the Troy, Mich.-based Portable Church Industries, a company specializing in equipping portable churches. It sells staging, seating and sound and lighting equipment and other transportable materials for mobile churches.

According to its Web site, the company, started in 1994, helped outfit its 100th church in 1999. From 1999 to 2006, it served about 400 more clients. Its "Church in a Box" packages run from about $15,000 to $44,000.

"It's pretty amazing," Williams says. "It rolls out, and at the end of the service it rolls away." And it isn't the only one. Yakima New Hope Community Church of the Nazarene has been pulling its pieces out of a travel trailer for nearly two years now, setting up each week at the Keith and Keith funeral chapel.

            "There have been times when we've been in the midst of setting up and people have just grown tired," senior pastor Bob Russell says. "It's a lot of work each week."

At the same time, "There is a great sense of anticipation. We're looking down the road, and hopefully we're seeing a time when we won't have to do it."

For more than 25 years, New Hope -- formerly the First Church of the Nazarene -- was located on North 40th Avenue in Yakima. It constructed that building in 1980. Since then, membership grew smaller and changed, and Russell began noticing young families from East Valley in the pews.

            In 2007, New Hope sold its building to Yakima Foursquare Church. Eventually, it plans to build a new building on five acres it owns in Terrace Heights. But for the time being, Russell is content transforming the funeral chapel for a few hours, once a week.

There's no mortgage to pay, and it saves on insurance costs. There's also a sense of liberation.

            "It allows us to get away from the building mentality, that church is a place," Russell says. "The church is us, doing the work of the ministry wherever we are."

Highland Community Church, founded in 2002, held its first few services in a barn belonging to one of its members. Since then, it's been meeting at Highland High School in Cowiche. "It's allowed us to focus on what we should be: the people," says pastor Marc Dowd. "We've been able to focus on people and ministry rather than the expense of building payments." Like New Hope, Highland Community wants to eventually build its own church. It already owns eight acres on Summitview Road.

"But at this point in time, there is no timeline," says Dowd, admitting there are a few drawbacks to renting. It can be difficult to build a sense of identity without a permanent structure. And sometimes, people are confused about where services are held.

"We've done a pretty good job of making the community know where we meet," Dowd says. "But there are still some people who aren't sure as we have to bounce around whenever the high school has a (sports) tournament." Moving around can be rough on church equipment, too. "There's the wear and tear of unloading and loading every Sunday," Dowd says.

            "You can't get around that," Schubert says. "You have to plan for it. You're a portable church. You're going to wear out equipment faster than you normally would."

Other drawbacks include availability and community awareness.

"You can't just waltz in on a Wednesday night and say, 'Hey, we're going to have Bible study,' because it's not your building," Schubert says. "Then there's the identity issue; nobody knows we exist. Other than word of mouth -- or if you happen to see the trailer on Sunday mornings -- it's difficult to promote your church."

His advice to Williams: "You do what you can do with what you have to make it work."

Dowd says, "I think you have to be flexible. That is one thing we've learned."

One benefit of meeting in a school or community center is that a neutral location might help draw in visitors that otherwise wouldn't come.

             For some, the set-up is "less threatening," says 44-year-old Mark Flippin, the new worship pastor at the new Harvest Community. "Some people don't want to go to a church building," he says.

So far, the congregation is made up of 76 adults and about 40 youths from Selah, Yakima and other nearby towns. Williams, the senior pastor, is hoping to grow those numbers without pulling people away from other churches.

"We're not coming here with the spirit of competition," he says. "We're trying to reach un-churched people."

            Selah was chosen because of its growing demographics, Williams says. To advertise the new church, fliers were mailed to more than 6,800 area homes.

Williams is the only paid staff member. As the church grows, he says, that will change.

"A church is not a building," he says. "It shouldn't be defined by a building. A church is the people. It should be defined by followers of Christ."