A New Year...A New Location for LifeGate

A couple of months ago we made the decision to find a new home for LifeGate Church. Now we're only 6 days away from our first service in our new location and only 20 days away from our Grand Opening service for our new community. A lot of my friends and acquaintances in ministry have asked about the reasons behind our move. I thought it would be good today to take a minute and recap why we're making this leap of faith. The following is taken from my message on October 30th. (You can listen to the full message here.)

Over the past couple of months of prayer and with the encouragement of some key friends and overseers for LifeGate, we’ve come to the decision that we have to be much more intentional about being the light in our community. So today, I want to let you know that we are making a major strategy shift at LifeGate.

That shift begins with a new location. Beginning January 8^th, LifeGate’s new home will be Veteran’s Park Elementary school. We chose Veteran’s Park to be our new home for a couple of reasons that I want to share with you this morning.

1) It’s in an underserved area of our city. Within a three mile radius of the school there are 70,000 people. There are 3 Krogers and a Wal-Mart in that area and only a handful of churches, none of which offer what we have to offer here at LifeGate.

2) It’s a secular school. Lexington Christian Academy (our home since launch in 2009) has been a great partner in the gospel, but the fact that we have church in this building has not helped us win many people. To attend at LCA you must already have a home church. The vast majority of students at Veteran’s Park come from unchurched homes. We can build relationships with the school, the teachers and the families that attend there and see people come to Christ.

3) It’s a great base for ministry – The school is surrounded by thousands of young families. They play ball in the park behind the school. There is a massive apartment complex across the street that’s home to thousands of young professionals. There are dozens of small businesses and professional offices in the area.

4) We will be able to control the environment

· One of the blessings and curses of LCA is that we use their equipment.

· At VPE we will be purchasing and using our own equipment.

· We’ll be self-contained and self-sufficient

· We’ll convert the hallway to an awesome fellowship area

· We’ll take the gym and create an intimate worship space with our own sound and lights. We can make it as large or as small as we want.

· We’ll be able to upgrade our kids ministry in a space that is already decorated with kids in mind.

This move is about more than just a building. It’s about us becoming the light in our city and specifically in this Veteran’s Park community. We don’t currently have the resources to reach every neighborhood in Lexington. But for the next couple of years we are going to make the three mile circle around Veteran’s Park Elementary our mission field. We are going to serve that community. We are going to pray for those families and businesses. We are going to share the good news with them. We are going to be the city on the hill. We are going to be the beacon of hope. We are going to be the light for this part of Lexington. Does that mean that if you live in Nicholasville or Winchester or off Richmond Road that we are not interested in ministering to you. Absolutely not. We are counting on you to jump in with both feet and bring your friends and neighbors from where you live as well. But we are going to bring laser like focus to reaching the area around Veteran’s Park.

Time has flown by since I first shared this vision with our church back in October. I've been so excited to see how our LifeGate family has gotten behind this move with their energy and finances. If you're a friend of LifeGate's and would like to get involved, we could still use your help. We've raised about 75% of our moving budget, but still need about $10,000 to make this move with excellence. You can give securely online here Beyond giving, pray for us to have a huge impact in our new community over the next few months. If you live in Lexington, join us on January 22nd for our Grand Opening service. We'd love to see you there.