How Do You Use Your Church Space Creatively?

We provide a twice monthly food pantry, one that is open to the community and serves over 700 households (drive up format) and the other that serves about 75 households/families from our local schools who have been referred to us. We also rent space to an addiction support group and two other churches.

Trinity CRC in Rock Valley hosts/offers ESL classes several evenings a week. We're also an emergency shelter location in case of storms/tornados.

I absolutely love this question and spend a lot of time thinking about this and helping congregations discern this. I have seen an incredible variety of ways congregations have innovatively stewarded the indoor and outdoor space of the congregation.  Things like: remote learning spaces, meeting space for community, farmers markets, reflective and teaching gardens, bicycle learning for young riders, housing, community kitchens, small business incubators, refugee services, day cares and Head Start classes...the list goes on. What is essential is to discover and identify the ASSETS (gifts, resources) of their congregation, including the physical space, and the assets of the community and learn how they can work together for the flourishing of the neighborhood. I recently hosted a conversation about this very thing with other faith-rooted leaders. If you want to connect or dig into this deeper - let me know! Thanks for the question!

We will be opening up our sanctuary in a few weeks and hosting an indie Christian singer/songwriter from North Carolina (jessraymusic.com - definitely check out her music!) in a concert that we are promoting to as many coffee shops and other churches as will allow our flyers! Here in Salt Lake City, live music from Christian artists is a rarity -- everyone seems to pass us by on their way to the Pacific Northwest or Southern California.  So we hope to fill our space with believers and non-believers for a lovely evening of songs and stories from Jess Ray! And it all came about from her instagram post a month ago wondering if anyone in Utah would want to host her. We jumped at the opportunity! We are excited to embark on this new adventure and encourage community through creativity and the gospel.

Just a quick update on using our space for a concert venue: we had 90 people, some who traveled an hour and a half to attend. Pastors from five different churches (only one CRC) attended and much of my conversation with people was explaining who we are as a church! Everyone was so blessed by the gathering together of believers and non-believers for a lovely evening of story and song.