Coming Soon: A New Home for New Hope!

If you were one of the 165 folks at our special First Anniversary Worship Service last Sunday, then you heard the exciting news...New Hope's shepherds will soon be signing a lease for our own space!

The property is located at NE 3rd and Kirby, right where 3rd Street turns into Three Mile Lane (click here for a Google Map). It formerly housed the employment office. It's right across the street from St. James Catholic School, and a block east of Golden Valley Brew Pub.

There are two buildings on the property. The smaller one that's closest to 3rd Street (and looks like a bank to me) is will soon be a new family restaurant. Our space will be in the longer building behind it (along 4th Street), and we'll be leasing about half of the 10,000 square feet available.

Here's the view from 3rd Street. The building at the far right will be a restaurant. How 'bout that parking lot!

Here it is from another angle (from the car lot on Logan St and Three Mile Lane)

This is a picture of the worship space I took through one of the windows.

And here's the view from behind (4th and Logan)

There are so many great things about having this new space
- We'll have it all week
- It's big enough that we can all worship together in one service
- No more complete set-up/tear-down on Sunday morning
- Lots of space for our youth group to grow mid-week
- Great for our Awana club children's program
- Room for offices
- Plenty of parking
- More opportunities for special events
- Lots of room for New Hope to grow!

Of course there will be some new challenges to the new place, too. This is a step of faith for us--it will require more monthly rent money, plus some new one-time expenses like chairs, tables, church signs, etc. There will be opportunities for folks who are handy with tools or cleaning or yardwork to use their helpful gifts for our ministry. And it will challenge us to keep a mindset that we are moving forward, not just content to stay where we are as a comfortable, safe church.
And speaking of moving forward, we are also working on an even better location for sometime next year. But I'll save that for another post!