The Willow Park Church congregation has now owned their building for one year. Their ministry is thriving in the downtown location.
Many of our churches experienced a dispersing of congregations during the pandemic and felt the uncertainty of how many people would come back as things reopened. We feared the empty pews and vacant rooms, but what happens when your congregation returns full-force and you no longer have a building to welcome them to?
This was the predicament Willow Park Church faced as one of their three locations across Kelowna was told their rental arrangement would be coming to an end.
“We have an amazing church family and we are so, so grateful [the congregation returned],” said Pastor Glenn Madden.
“But we were looking at being homeless. Over 200 people regularly meeting and we were going to have no building.”
Willow Park Church runs three physical church locations and this particular location had been renting a building from the school district for the last 20 years. As the city began to reopen after the pandemic, the school district wanted to return the use of the building to a functional elementary school.
The church was allowed to temporarily set up on Sunday mornings as a “pop-up” church but the congregation would need to find another place to meet.
“I have a newfound appreciation for people who turn up at 7 a.m. and start making church in a blank box,” beamed Madden. “It’s an amazing ministry, but the school district made it clear this wasn’t going to be an ongoing situation.”
The church leadership looked at every option for relocating, from wineries to horse training domes, but nothing was working out — until they came across a church building for sale by First Mennonite Church.
Madden’s team spoke to CCMBC Legacy Fund about obtaining a mortgage for this building and things seemed to look positive, but Willow Park Church had been debt-free for many years and leadership wanted to ensure they considered every factor before taking on such a large loan.
“We prayerfully went through what it might look like for us financially, given the cost of the building and some renovations,” explained Madden. “We gave a figure to First Mennonite Church and they accepted that, and that’s where the fun began.”
The board of elders gave Madden and his team two criteria to meet if they were going to move forward with the purchase of this building. The first was to raise $400,000 for a down payment, and the second was to increase the church’s annual donor income by 10 percent, which at the time amounted to about $200,000.
We used social media, websites, video, PDFs. We used a lot of enthusiasm, really high vision-casting and communication. And it was just so humbling to see how God’s family stepped up.”
— Willow Park executive pastor, Glenn Madden
These were pretty hefty goals for the church and they only had about a month to achieve them, but Madden was confident and hit the ground running.
Madden described the congregation as a good size but quite diverse when it comes to generational ages. He saw this wide age range as one of the biggest challenges to increasing their annual giving.
“I’m so grateful to our seniors and our Gen Xers who are committed to giving and tithing every month, but the Gen Z and Millennials have a different viewpoint when it comes to giving,” Madden said. “One that I’m realizing more and more that the church needs to appreciate and understand, rather than do drive-by guiltings just to try to get them to tithe.”
Madden and his team came up with a game plan that included a big marketing push leading up to their request to the congregation, and an idea they called “micro-decisions” or “micro-pledges.” The large financial goals were broken down into manageable amounts and presented to the congregation in a way that clearly communicated what that would look like for the individual. If enough people committed to these small amounts, then the church could reach their goal.
And by the end of their one-month deadline, the church had not only met their goals but surpassed them.
“It was amazing and humbling,” said Madden. “There was such an excitement. We literally saw this money rolling in. I know that sounds hyperbolic but that’s what it felt like.”
There were many in the congregation that increased their regular giving, but more importantly, there were many who started giving for the first time.
The congregation raised over $400,000 in one-time gifts and the church has seen an increase of about $270,000 in regular giving across the year. This was well beyond the amounts they needed to feel confident about acquiring a mortgage through CCMBC Legacy Fund.
“The brevity of this [conversation] makes it very difficult for me to give you all the steps, because there were many,” Madden said. “The momentum was really important. We used social media, websites, video, PDFs. We used a lot of enthusiasm, really high vision-casting and communication. And it was just so humbling to see how God’s family stepped up.”
The Willow Park Church congregation has now been in this building for one year and their ministry is thriving in the downtown location.
“God is still in the business of providing in remarkable ways, and with some different perspective on how people give and a little structuring around how to do it, it’s more than possible.”
Listen to the whole story here!
