Why a Building?
Although King’s Church has seen immense success in creating intimate and intentional
Christian community through our distributed church model, the church’s immense growth
has exposed the limitations of the model. The lack of a permanent location greatly limits
our ability to host more and larger events, and places a material financial and operational
burden on the church and our volunteers.
On Sunday mornings, the set-up team arrives at Penn Social between 6am and 8am to build a stage, hang lighting, hoist speakers, move bar stools and tables, and set-up over 500 chairs.
Following service the whole church comes together to put up 500 chairs and convert a
sanctuary back to a bar. Outside of Sunday mornings, any gathering in excess of ~40
people must be held in rented space at a financial and operational cost to the church.
KCC corrals 100 interns on the National Mall for corporate fellowship; men’s ministry
cooks 200 eggs in a home kitchen before our monthly breakfast; Women’s ministry hosts
100 women in a Capitol Hill park for a bouquet making class; Good Neighbor leverages
small groups to gather and store clothing and other goods for community events they put
on in other church’s facilities. The open-source church model is enlivening but stressful
and leaves little margin for error in planning or weather.
Although the Lord has given us the resources and creativity to solve for our space
constraints, King’s Church needs a dedicated space. We need a space which can
facilitate larger, more frequent, and more natural gatherings. We long to gather in large
numbers to break bread together, to celebrate life with food and wine. We hope to share
the space with others, to make King’s Church known as a source of hope for those in
need, and through that generosity make the love of the Lord known to our community. We
yearn to adorn the space in warm and welcoming decorations, to create a space that
looks more like a church and less like a bar.
In short, King’s Church sees a permanent space as a vessel for amplifying the energy of
the church. King’s Church believes that through faith we can transform a building into a beacon of hope in the gospel for the people in the DMV.
"A building would enable ministry leads to expand their ministries, spend more time on ministry activities, and increase the connectedness of the congregation through recurring events and opportunities."
Small Groups
More small group leader training, appreciation and encouragement events. Having over 50 members actively involved in leading a group means we have to currently rent space anytime we want to gather them.
Good Neighbor
To have a space where community members can access a resource desk connecting them to vital services. We yearn to provide a loving, caring, and gospel location for people to get material support.
King's Church Collective
We do not have enough room to host group events. Our fall & winter classes are ~75 people and summer exceeds 200. Interns need a safe haven in the city of DC and rotating between indoor and outdoor spaces causes confusion and increases costs.
Men's Ministry
Event sizes exceed current office spaces and a building would provide a place where men could gather organically throughout the week and weekend.
Women's Ministry
Activities are often broken up between multiple venues and a significant effort goes into the administrative side of planning an event because of this. A building gives us the space for women to build community with other women in a safe enviornment
Prayer
We do not have a private space for people to receive prayer before, during or after services nor do we have a dedicated space for intercession prayer.
REC
The logistics of running REC when it is warm outside are easy and manageable however we would like to be able to partner with local ministries like Fellowship of Christian Athletes for winter activities as well as invest in our own yard games and resources.
Kingdom Kids
We currently convert a portion of a coffee shop the size of a large bedroom into a nursery, preschool, and elementary space for children every week. Although we have mastered the space and have taken security precautions, we would love to have a dedicated and secure space for our kids to experience the kingdom.
Family & Merge
The unique demands of our Family Ministry (I.e. onsite childcare) make it impossible to use any of King's existing spaces. Significant resources go into sourcing a venue. We want to expand this ministry and offer a space for families to gather. Merge currently has no room to expand. Eventually with a building we would love to host marriage events and offer more events and resources for our seriously dating and engaged couples.
GO!
A permanent space allows us to host evangelism trainings. plan outreach events and offer a welcoming space for community focused events.
Learn & Equip
We dream of becoming the beacon of Christian intellectual and theologically sound thought in Washington, DC. However, our current facilities constrain the frequency and size of our events. We've had a number of notable speakers and large equip class sizes. All have had a wait list of dozens of people not being able to attend.