The Big Decision of Project Church

On Sunday, October 18 at 10am, Project Church will hold our first service at our new venue… The historic Elks Theatre.

For those outside the Black Hills, The Elks is a vintage theater located in the heart of Rapid City and boasts the largest movie screen in South Dakota.  The main theater seats upwards of 600 people and it’s a cultural landmark for our community.

This move is a huge step of faith for our baby church!

The story of Project Church began in my living room as some friends and I began to dream of a church that was driven by the gospel on a mission to do what Jesus said: Go and make disciples who love God and people.

About a year ago, we decided to gather in public at Alternative Fuel Coffee House where a revolving door of fifty people (give or take) gathered to explore and follow Jesus.  Since then, we’ve seen God begin to build his church as strangers became friends and friends became family.  The coffee house has been a wonderful spot for us and we’re really going to miss the relational aspect of the space.   We were comfortable and had no intentions of moving until we absolutely had to.

Then a phone call from a friend (an assistant manager at the Elks) disrupted our comfort when she asked, “Would Project Church be interested in renting the Elks Theatre?”

This began a huge soul-searching, mission-clarifying journey for me and my crew at Project Church.  We asked each other questions like:

• “In light of our mission, what’s the wise thing, and most loving thing, to do?”
• “What about the people who just drop into our gathering at the coffee house? Will we lose that?
• “How can we afford to get all the resources to make this happen?”
• “Will people think church in a movie theater is strange?
• “How do you foster a relational vibe in a theater?”
• “Is it too churchy being we sit in rows rather than tables?”
• “What about the coffee?!!!”

This decision wasn’t merely about where we would meet.
It was really about who we are.

There are so many categories for churches these days.  Attractional, Missional, Organic, House/Simple, Traditional, Seeker-Sensitive, and so on.  The thing about our church is this: we don’t fit neatly in a given category.

We wondered what a theater communicates. I’m cautious of us being a big show and luring people in with Christian entertainment and teaching 7 Ways to a Shiny, Happy Life.  Fluffy churches like this reduce the church down to something much less than she really is.   She becomes a showgirl rather than a bride.  And I don’t want Project Church to be a showgirl church. I want us to a biblical one.

That said, we should be compelling. Like a cup of cold water in a parched world.  We should express our creativity, after all, God’s a creative God.  We should desire for as many as possible to know, love, and follow Jesus.  That’s our mandate!  We both invite people to come into our story (attractional) AND we bring our story to the people (missional). I guess you could say we’re missiottractional.

We meet in homes during the week (which is our purest expression of church) where we eat, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, share, learn, pray, and serve.  These look a lot like organic house church gatherings AND we meet on Sunday mornings where we connect, worship, and teach the scriptures. This looks a lot like what an outsider might expect a church would be.

In this decision-making process, we began to see our unique fingerprint as a church.  We don’t have to fit in a category, we can be who God has called us to be.  After much prayer, discussion, and outside input, we decided to go for it.   This decision led us to make these defining statements:

We’re relational and believe the church as expressed in the scriptures as a community of believers who share life together.  We will meet during the week to eat, celebrate, learn, pray, help, discuss, and serve.  We call these missional communities to remind us that it isn’t just about us, but about God’s mission in this world.  These groups are organic in nature and our hope is that they reproduce other missional communities.

We’re missional and we will be intentional about entering the stories of others.  Both as a church and as disciples.  From Beer & Bible to ThisMustChange.org to Rock-Paper-Scissors tournaments for local causes to preaching the gospel. We want to bring good news and be good news to our city and this world.

We’re attractional and invite people into our story.  We will embrace and express our creativity in worship to our Creator. We will gather in public on Sunday mornings for a worship service and this will be an entry point into our community. We will call it The Jesus Sessions (because that’s how we roll).  In addition, we use social media, the web, and technology more intentionally as we continue to share our story which is wrapped up in God’s Epic story.

We’re biblical and believe the scriptures should guide our church and lives in all things.  Our plans may change (such as venues) but our mission remains the same: to go and make disciples who love God and people.  We believe it’s the power of the gospel that changes people’s lives and its also the truth of the gospel that informs our lives.  At Project Church, we’re all about Jesus.  We simply want to tether ourselves to him and go as far as he leads.

It’s funny how one decision will lead you to hammer down who you are.  This is the lesson we’re learning as we make our move to the Elks Theatre.   We are excited about the next chapter of our church.  We’re still in diapers but we’re growing.

If you think of it, please pray for us.  We could use it. Pray that we would be faithful to our calling.  That we will be effective in making disciples who love God and people.  That we will be a drop of heaven here on earth.

Also, if you’d like to help us out tangibly, we’d greatly appreciate it.  We’d love for you to be a part of this story. You can give online or if you wish to give a specific item (equipment, resources, etc.), feel free to contact me.

Thanks for reading this blog and for your support!

We’re just getting started.