Three Reasons to Make the Summit Building Home

In God’s providence, our church has an opportunity to purchase the 1524 Summit building. A building task force, commissioned by the pastors (and comprised of two pastors and four congregants) has secured a purchase price and signed letter of intent with the building’s owner. The major piece that remains is the congregation’s approval, which the pastors are seeking on Wednesday, December 18. As we get closer to that date, in addition to the FAQ doc and the two Q&As coming up this Sunday (9am) and next (12pm), I wanted to share a few key points behind why the pastors believe owning this building is strategic. 

#1. Timeliness: This building is a timely fit for the life of our church and a timely opportunity.

Renting space for Sunday worship and discipleship initiatives is often strategic for church plants, especially as they work toward becoming viable churches, and then later, established churches. The pastors believe that Cities Church has outgrown the season (and size and complexity) in the life of our church where renting was optimal. We’re now at a size, age, and sophistication where churches typically find it more strategic to have their own 24/7 space that can meet the needs of the church and streamline mission, rather than have to constantly work around the needs of other entities who own and/or share the space.

For our church to now do what we’ve been called to do, owning this space is the right move for us. This building would provide a readymade place for us to deepen and expand our current discipleship ministry, if not only for children and families, there are also a wide range of topics that an available space would allow us to target, such as seminars focusing on marriage and parenting to trainings in faithful stewardship and evangelism. In the same way that it’s good for maturing, established families to put down roots and invest in buying a home instead of rental indefinitely from a landlord, it also typically becomes good for maturing, established churches to own a home base, especially when the right time and opportunity comes.

Since we first planted in January 2015, we’ve kept our ears to the ground on available spaces within the cities that could accommodate our growing church. We were forced to search for potential spaces in August 2017 after the Minnehaha explosion, and we worked with a commercial realtor for six months beginning in September 2018. Additionally, two other churches in our network (who meet within a five-mile radius of us) also are searching for space (not to mention other plants and young churches!) and they are not finding anything in the city. The reality is: there are no other available buildings of the Summit building’s size in the city. The owner is going to sell the space to someone, and come Spring 2022, there is no guarantee that the new owner will renew a lease with our church, which would then put us in the crowded room of several churches needing to find a space in our area. That is not a predicament we want to find ourselves in as a seven-year-old church. We do not sense it to be our calling to move out of the city to find space. Therefore, to have the opportunity to purchase a building like ours, at its location and size within a major metro, is a rare opportunity — not to mention the timeliness of the owner’s willingness to sell, the North American Mission Board’s willingness to loan us the money, and our congregation’s capacity to afford it.

#2. Permanence: It is good for a church that preaches the Bible to have a permanent footprint in the Twin Cities.

This point has to do with the church’s relationship to greater society, which is a question Christians have been asking every generation since the New Testament. The church is part of society, but also has an indispensable mission to society. Overall, we are called to be a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9) — a witness to Jesus that seeks society’s good. And the first-level good of society that the church seeks is the church’s own ability to persevere in godliness (see 1 Timothy 2:2). “Godliness” is the most basic word for a way of life that is congruent to the gospel, including such things as sharing the gospel, making disciples, caring for the needy, bearing the burdens of others, loving one another, and more. This way of life — the church’s godliness — is our mission to society. It’s what effects society’s good.

For hundreds of years in Western societies, church buildings within the centers of major metros have stood as a symbol of that mission. They have been a visible bastion of “good” for the surrounding communities. However, too many ‘churches’ across America who occupy these buildings have forsaken the gospel that sets them apart. They have sold out their unique witness, their source of good, and have assimilated with the spirit of the age. That is especially the case for several churches within our cities connected to mainline denominations. These ‘churches’ have their buildings — they occupy a permanent footprint — but they don’t preach the Bible. 

Cities Church does preach the Bible, though, boldly and joyfully — and we believe it is good that churches who preach the Bible have a permanent footprint within the cities.

#3. Vision: This location is strategic to our vision to plant churches all throughout the Twin Cities metro.

Not only would 1524 Summit Avenue provide us with a permanent footprint, but it would be a footprint directly in the middle of the Twin Cities. As early as 2010, a handful of our original core families identified “Cities Church” as a potential name for a future plant. We confirmed this name in 2014 as we met over the course of several months to pray and dream about becoming a church that would seek the good of the entire metro through multiplying churches, north, south, east, and west. We met at Minnehaha Academy Upper School in those early days because of its proximity to both cities. Now, at 1524 Summit Avenue, just 2.9 miles from Minnehaha, we are in a strategic location to carry out that same vision for years to come. 

We want Jesus to be impossible to ignore in the Twin Cities, and what better place to aspire toward that dream than directly in the center of the Twin Cities — and on Summit Avenue in St. Paul? Our current location is primed to become a major hub for discovering, developing, and deploying church planting teams in all corners of the Twin Cities. Once launching churches, our building would continue as a hub that resources our daughter churches through hosting regular trainings, classes, and events as part of the new discipleship ‘institute’ committed to leadership development and church multiplication in pursuit of our church planting vision. This building’s central location makes it accessible from the entire metro, and the space is versatile to serve various size dynamics: large (sanctuary), medium (fellowship hall), small (library).

Beginning in 2020, our Multiplication Pipeline for men will be comprised of members across our three church plants, consisting of 36 modules and at least four cohorts, in addition to a new eight-part mentoring module led by Erica Foster with 11 women, which is continuing to grow. We are currently working toward adding a new Global Missions track, akin to Bethlehem’s Nurture Program, to equip men and women for career missions work with the International Mission Board. We have also just completed our pilot adult “Sunday School” class of men and women, with hopes of adding out new semester offerings each year. 

Now in its fourth year, our expanding multiplication initiative is a vital layer of discipleship for our church, grounding our members in theological foundations and equipping us with competencies vital for church planting. The goal is that every covenant member is equipped to join a new church planting team if God were to call them to go. This is a vision that needs a home. No more hustling to rent space at Minnehaha, Open Book, or Turtle Bread. This building on 1524 Summit Avenue would be the hub that serves this vision, and our daughter churches, into the next generation.