Megachurch All About 'Doing the Gospel'

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, July 07, 2007

An innovative megachurch will reopen an old strip of stores as a new community center next month.

Once housing a liquor store, Dee-Kens lounge and Ko-op 65 food pantry, storefronts near downtown South Bend in Indiana are being renovated into Monroe Circle Community Center, which will offer an alternative high school, after-school tutoring and mentoring, GED classes, life-skills training, a food pantry and a coffee house.

The project is a collaborative effort by the 7,000-member Granger Community Church, Ko-op 65, Feed the Children, Erskine, Inc. and Sweet Home Baptist Church, which once ran a five-and-dime store among the early-1900s stores. The building on Western Avenue and Taylor Street is across the street from the largest mass of public housing in the city.

Granger's senior pastor, the Rev. Mark Beeson, says the Monroe Center won't require clients to pray to receive services, according to South Bend Tribune. The center will be more about doing than saying the gospel, he said.

Granger Community Church has received more attention in the local community for its innovative outreaches and charitable work. The church drew about 1,000 additional members to its 6,000 average weekly attendance last year when it posted mylamesexlife.com billboards around the city.

And just last December, GCC turned its 20th anniversary celebration into a community outreach campaign. Instead of throwing a churchwide celebration, the megachurch decided to celebrate by giving back to the community. Using its Christmas offerings, church volunteers launched 20 Days of Giving, pumping free gas, giving an extreme makeover to storage space at the Center for the Homeless in South Bend, giving food to 8,000 families, providing funds for families struggling to pay their rent and other community works that added up to a total of 20 gifts.

And each year, GCC gives away 200,000 pounds of food, according to Tim Stevens, executive pastor at Granger.

At a conference in Washington last month, Stevens stressed the call for churches to make an impact in order to create buzz in the community.

Where's the impact of the church that's so loud that the community notices, he asked.

Churches such as Granger debunks the megachurch myth that megachurches are insular and not caring for the community, as Scott Thumma and Dave Travis pointed out in their book Beyond Megachurch Myths. According to a 2005 megachurch survey by Thumma and Travis, 79 percent of these large churches had joined together with other churches on a local community service project. A 2000 survey revealed that 99 percent of megachurches supported programs for youth and teens; 95 percent supported counseling services or support groups; and 91 percent gave cash or vouchers to families or individuals.

"This analysis makes it clear that the megachurches are anything but inactive in their engagement with their communities and the needs of the world outside their walls," the authors wrote.

The Monroe Community Center is part of Granger's growing outreach efforts. Organizers of the Monroe Center knocked on doors and held a forum at the Coveleski Stadium in South Bend, which drew about 200 people, to learn local residents' needs. Participants believe the collaboration of the five nonprofit organizations can provide much needed outreach to underserved families.

The reopening of the old strip of storefronts next month will serve to nourish both the soul and body, noted Beeson in the local Tribune.

The learning center is scheduled to open mid-August and a vocational and art center is slated for a spring 2008 opening.