When most churches speak of purchasing a building, it usually translates to a worship space. It is somewhere for the people of the church to meet for Sunday morning worship services, a venue for weddings, funerals, and the occasional community function. This is a standard in America. It has become interwoven into our culture that a church needs a solid worship space in the form of 4 walls and a roof. The Anchor is challenging that stereotype by being a church without walls. Our space for Sunday morning worship is a dock for a boat – its everyday purpose is put to use for God.
Just like the barge with ebb and flow of the river, our church also rocks with the wave swells as we tailor ourselves to the needs of the community, as well as those in our congregation. Like the barge, the building The Anchor is hoping to buy also will be used for a different and multifaceted project. This building will not only house one of our mission groups (Switchin’ Gears, who fixes up bikes and gives them away for free), but is also equipped with several apartments which the church will use as low income housing. Instead of the “needs” of a Sunday morning service, our building will assist in the objective of Jesus. Jesus’s entire mission has nothing to do with what we call “church” – but it has everything to do with the work of the Father in the community. By supplying the basic need of shelter to those in need and giving a mode of transportation to those who have so little, we are going to be the hands and feet of the commission Jesus has entrusted to His followers.
The building is located in not the best of areas. With the violent unrest that has occurred in our city in the past few months, we hope that our church will be a lighthouse to those in the surrounding neighborhood. This will be a positive and concrete influence in the community. We hope those who pass will know that hope is not dead and the light of Christ shines well and bright in our city.
Best of all, this enterprise fits in with ALL of our mission values:
COMPASSION for those who do not have their basic needs met, such as shelter.
RESTORATION by giving someone a hand to better themselves and their life with a place to call home. By taking an old bike and fixing it up and presenting it to someone who could really use it, whether they are elderly, homeless, or a neighborhood kid. It means fixing up an old building for a higher purpose.
RELATIONSHIPS are being formed as we come alongside those who are in need of a bike or a home. Or a mission.
ECLECTIC is the perfect word for what we are doing because it is different than the normal church building. Not many churches would think this is a good idea. We are called to be different.
GENEROSITY with what we have. We freely give to those not only in our congregation with our time and talents, but to those in the community who need a beacon of hope in the form of prayer and tangible needs.