Church WithOutWalls is building a worship center this summer with the help of Louisiana Baptist Builders and Builders for Christ.
LAFAYETTE – Church WithOutWalls is building a worship center this summer with the help of Louisiana Baptist Builders and Builders for Christ.
C-WOW needs a building, Pastor Chris Kopp says. They’ve been meeting in a school, and Sunday morning worship attendance now – in the fifth year of the church’s life – is 175 or more. Fifteen people have been baptized over the last year. Among present and future ministries are drug rehabilitation, financial counseling, job skills development.
A building is a tool that can be used to provide space for ministry, the pastor says. But to him, a building is not the church.
“I love it when people ask me where the church is,” Kopp said. “I tell them, ‘Well, let’s see. It’s 11 o’clock, so some of them are at work. Some are probably on lunch break. Some are starting their TRUST Small Group.”
TRUST – Teach, Reach, Uplift, Share, Truth – groups are small Bible study groups that meet throughout the week at various times, mostly in people’s homes, rather than as Sunday morning Bible study classes.
In essence, the pastor said, C-WOW is all over Lafayette and across Acadiana, wherever its members live, work, go to school, play and reach out to family, friends, coworkers and people they minister to.
“The Lord builds a church into the lives of his people,” Kopp said. “As C-WOW members live out their faith, they are the church in their community, in their sphere of influence.”
One way C-WOW members develop an ever-growing closer relationship with God is through the TRUST groups. The emphasis is neighbors reaching neighbors, growing them up in Christ and bringing them into the fold, the pastor said.
“About two years ago, we started seeing the need for another tool to help us grow the church – the people,” Kopp said. The congregation also saw God moving them to their own property, rather than the Sunday morning space they rented at Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Youngsville.
Six acres of prime real estate in the fastest-growing part of Lafayette was donated to C-WOW, and the people began to think how a structure should be utilized.
A building should be a community center, complete with a multipurpose hall for worship and ministry, kitchen, and rooms tailored for children’s ministry, they decided.
“We’ve hit a roadblock in developing children’s small groups and need to utilize space for that,” Kopp explained. “The social-type of ministries also need an identifiable location. They’re going to be geared towards plugging people into small groups. The idea is to develop relationships.”
TRUST Small Groups will continue to meet all over Acadiana. The vision is to grow to 200 groups once a “command center” at the new building is established.
C-WOW’s new building is an example of the cooperative spirit in Louisiana, said Mike Canady, LBC’s director of missions and ministry.
“From the initial days of this church plant, East Bayou Baptist Church in Lafayette and Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport have demonstrated generosity,” Canady said.
“Funds from the Georgia Barnett State Missions Offering provided grants for the facilities, and Jeff Woodrich, LBC church building strategist, coached the church leaders with the building process.”
The Alabama-based Builders for Christ construction volunteers arrive the first of June to begin construction on Church WOW. Hundreds of Southern Baptists from across the nation are scheduled to work but additional volunteers are needed through the summer in order to complete the structure by Labor Day, so it can begin to be used.
“As a firm believer in the Cooperative Program, it is our desire to partner with all the churches in Louisiana Baptist Convention to see a great harvest of souls, as we work together,” Kopp said. “We want to plant more churches that take the message and ministry of Jesus to people.”
For more information about or to volunteer for the building construction project at Church WithOutWalls, contact Pastor Chris Kopp at chris@cwow.net.
Read more about Church WithOutWalls on the Louisiana Baptist Convention blog:www.lbc.org/pages/blog.aspx.
Jeffrey L. Cook D.Min. is an LBC regional strategist in southwestern Louisiana.