Southwest Church has own (home after 14 years
Southwest Church has own home after 14 years
Dayton Daily News
By Pamela Dillon, Contributing Writer
Updated 7:55 PM Friday, February 24, 2012
A new church building calls for a new logo, and Southwest Church in Springboro has one: Love, Serve, Share. The logo reflects the churchs mission to love God, love people, serve the community, and share Jesus. The church will hold its grand opening at 150 Remick Blvd. on March 4.
Since its inception in October 1997, the congregation has met in many different sites during the years. The first few families met at a former banquet hall called Malachis. A year and a half later, church membership had outgrown that space and started meeting at the Springboro Junior High School.
In the summer of 1999, Southwest Church entered into a partnership with the YMCA, founded in 1844 by George Williams as the Young Mens Christian Association. What better church partner than one begun as a Christian Association?
By January of 2000, Southwest was holding Sunday worship in the Ys gym. A motto on the wall reminded people to take care of their Mind, Body, and Spirit.
The YMCA took care of its members minds and bodies during the week. Southwest nurtured its congregations spirits on Sunday mornings.
In September of that year, the church entered a mortgage agreement for 5.2 acres just east of the YMCA. In November 2002, final payment was made on the initial financial agreement with the Y. By March 2006, church leadership had interviewed builders and capital stewardship planners.
The Transforming Journey stewardship campaign began in early 2006 and lasted until October of 2011. Ground was broken for the church on December 12, 2010.
Our original design was for 19,000 square feet, but with the bad economy, we had to cut back a little bit to 12,400, said senior minister Roger Hendricks, who gave up having his own office in order to add another childrens classroom.
No one is more excited about this new church building than eight-year Southwest member Scott LeBlanc, who was leader of the set-up/tear-down team for the past five years. The team lined up and put away approximately 260 chairs, and set up the stage for services.
This volunteer ministry was a need the church had, and involved anywhere from three to five people working about four hours every weekend, said LeBlanc, who also was the construction manager on the building site. Now that we have our own building, it frees us up to pursue volunteering in other ways.
Southwest member Linn Towne, a First Impressions volunteer, helped decorate the new church. She used vinyl word sayings such as God is Love to make guests feel at ease.
I have always felt a need for people to feel at home, warm and welcome, Towne said. We planned the lobby to be neat and organized so new guests could find their way around. We definitely want people to feel the love of Jesus while they are here.
That group of people has grown. According to Hendricks, about 20 percent more people attended when they held the first service at the church on Feb. 12. They will continue to share indoor space and parking with the Coffman Y.
The partnership the Y has had with Southwest Church has been tremendous, and were thrilled to continue this relationship. Were very excited for the congregation and the church leadership, said Coffman Y group vice president David Thompson.
The church lobby is wireless, and it holds a brand new cafe. The colors in the new building are a combination of soft teal, light gold, and red clay. The worship center sports two new flat-screen TVs.
We were really grateful for our time at the Y, but to go from a gym to an acoustically-designed room was just glorious, Hendricks said.
The hallway for the young ones has a nursery, rooms for twos/threes, fours/fives, kindergarten through fourth graders, and middle schoolers/junior high. They will probably move the high school class back to the YMCA. The church will host Cub Scout meetings, and the Y will hold a preschool in the church beginning this fall.
As we look back on this building program, it was challenging at times. But it was all worth it, said Hendricks, who plans up to four phases to the east and south as the church membership grows.
Contact contributing writer Pamela Dillon at pamdillon@woh.rr.com.