Megachurch Assists New Covenant Church Plant

SARNIA, ONT (October 9, 2003) - The newest congregation in the Canada Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church - Lighthouse Community Church - is making an impact in this city of 70,000 in eastern Ontario province near the Canadian border.

Six families, who desired to begin a new church in the area, asked a former youth pastor of another church, Mark Crate, to become senior pastor in the summer of 2000. The congregation meets Saturday evenings at a Christian Reformed Church in Sarnia. The still relatively new congregation is in the process of purchasing land near its current worship location where they worship and has already received city zoning approval. Members hope to build a worship facility in the near future - families pledged $120,000 as part of a capital campaign drive that concluded last month with a celebration at the church.

In addition to assistance from the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), Lighthouse Community has received help from Kensington Community Church in Troy, Michigan, a large independent congregation located in a suburb of Detroit. Kensington Community has also helped two other Covenant church plants in the Detroit area.

J.D. Booth, a freelance journalist and one of the founding core group leaders of Lighthouse Community Church, discussed how his congregation got acquainted with the Detroit area megachurch in 2000. "I was coming back from a job interview late in the summer," he recalled. "I was driving along, kind of meandering back from Detroit and saw Kensington Community Church. I looked up the church on the web and saw what they were doing and thought maybe we could network with them.

"I met with Kensington's finance person that winter and said that our pastor needed to get together with their pastors to connect and share information," Booth continued. "He (Crate) did that and ended up in the church's church planters network. One of the people he met was Larry Sherman (associate superintendent and church planting specialist with the Great Lakes Conference). Sherman was informally coaching that group, even though Kensington Community wasn't a Covenant church. We got introduced to Larry Sherman and he got us introduced to the Covenant."

For Crate, the unique partnership with Kensington Community has been a gift beyond measure. "Kensington Community was the first group of people who were excited about the call that God gave us," he said. "The pastor at Kensington Community, Steve Andrews, wrapped his arms around me and cared about me personally. When we needed help and encouragement, Kensington was there. And then Kensington pointed me to the Covenant . . . the Covenant has cared for us like crazy and Kensington has partnered with us every step of the way."

The Department of Church Growth and Evangelism sent Crate to a church planter ministry assessment center and then met further with Crate and Lighthouse Community leadership in the fall of 2001. Sherman continues to provide consultation to the congregation with Canada Conference Supt. Jeff Anderson also assisting the church.

Lighthouse Community originally met in a rental hall and worshiped on Sundays, but then decided to rent space from a church and conduct church services on Saturday nights because it was easier to secure worship space at a time other than Sunday mornings. The average worship attendance for the Saturday night services ranges from 120-170. But the possibility of buying 50 acres of farmland for about $250,000 (Canadian funds) gives Lighthouse Community immense ministry possibilities, said Booth, who discovered the land while researching one of his stories (see accompanying photo).

"We are a strategic beachhead for the Covenant in eastern Canada," Booth noted. "We're marketing for people who don't know church, who are dying for relationships, who are hurting. We can provide a safe place for people to get connected to God."

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