Looking for a Location: Part 1

On Thursday October 18th we began the process of looking for space in North Liberty.  We saw four storefronts in Penn Landing, a plaza at the northeast corner of Hwy 965 and Penn St.  Hwy 965 is the main north-south street running straight through the middle of North Liberty, extending south to the mall in Coralville and north to Cedar Rapids.  Penn St. is the main east-west drag, having entrance and exit ramps for I-380 on the west side of town.  Because so many people are commuting from North Liberty to Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, I-380 gets quite a bit of traffic.  From the intersection of Hwy 965 west along Penn to I-380 there are all sorts of new developments being built.  The intersection of Hwy 965 and I-380 is the most developed so far, is arguably the main intersection of the city, and has open storefronts, so we started there.  Here is a link to a map of the plaza in North Liberty: http://bit.ly/pachapkwy.

The first picture is of one of the storefronts, the second picture is of the inside.  Were we to go with this particular space the owner would remove the pile of things on the right, finish dry-walling, and have it primed and ready to paint.

Many church plants begin in a school, a community center, or another place with a large room, like a meeting room in a restaurant or a fitness facility.  We had several reasons for wanting a permanent space that would be ours throughout the week.  It is important that members of the congregation are able to point to a place and say "Christ is there for me."  So the altar, baptismal font, and pulpit remain stationary.  As Lutherans we believe that when Christ is present with us he is always present bodily.  Jesus is never present merely in a spiritual way as he was before his incarnation.  But ever since the incarnation Jesus has been God in flesh.  It is somewhat troubling to think that one day Jesus is present in the flesh in a place and the next day in that same place there is a woman laying there in a tank top sweating, doing crunches, and listening to profane music.  So having a place that is set apart seems important.  Having a permanent altar also provides the opportunity for people to come for individual confession and absolution, provides a place for people to come and pray, and provides a place to have Bible studies during the course of the week, all things that would not be available if we only had a space for a couple hours on Sunday morning.  Plus practically speaking it will save people the trouble of having to set up and tear down every Sunday.

While we have not yet picked a specific place, we know what we're looking for and we're moving in a good direction.  The next big step is still getting more founding families.  Once we have a few more we can begin meeting.

In Christ

Pastor Andrew Richard

St. Silas Lutheran Church
www.stsilaslutheran.org
www.facebook.com/stsilaslutheran
stsilaslutheran@gmail.com