Lighthouse Church, a USMB church plant in Lakewood, Colo., is no longer unpacking and repacking, setting up and tearing down every Sunday morning for worship services at a local high school. In June the fledgling congregation moved to a church facility in west Lakewood that is owned by a Presbyterian church that closed its doors on Easter Sunday 2017.
“We’re a real church now,” celebrated church planter Josh Shaw in a July Facebook post that included a photo of a newly installed sign outside their new church home.
Lighthouse has signed a long-term lease and raised $20,000 to update its new church home, located at 8210 W. 10th Avenue and in a neighborhood comprised of immigrant and low-income residents.
“As we’ve moved into our new neighborhood, our driving passion as a church has been to prepare the way for God’s kingdom,” says Shaw in an email. “We want our zip code to know Jesus, know his kingdom and know his healing power. And as we’ve moved, God has been so faithful.”
Lighthouse Church had its first Sunday service in its new home June 25. In the first six weeks after that move Shaw says the congregation welcomed more than 100 guests and grew by more than 50 people. Ten people gave their lives to Jesus.
“We’ve seen people from all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds come to our church and stick because God is doing something amazing here,” says Shaw in a video update recorded in early August.
“The neighborhood we are in is hungry for Jesus’ Luke 4:18 promise: ‘That he has come to set the captives free, to free the oppressed, to free those in bondage and to bring the day of the Lord,’’ says Shaw, in an email. “They want Jesus, and they want his freedom in every area of life.”
Lighthouse Church was launched in October 2015 and began with 12 people meeting in a small warehouse. They describe their church as place where “it’s okay to not be okay.”
Before moving to its current location, Lighthouse Church met at Green Mountain High School and made it a point to serve and bless that school. Twice the congregation raised funds to purchase needed items for the school, specifically the theater department.
Their first project was to purchase sewing machines for the theater department and the second was to buy a storage unit. Shaw was excited to report that the sewing machines helped make it possible for two students to receive college scholarships for theater production, specializing in sewing and the creation of costumes.
Lighthouse Church is supported by USMB, the Southern District Conference and Mountain View Community Church of Fresno, California. The Shaws were interns with MVCC, and MVCC is taking on the role of “mother church” for the church plant even though the churches are hundreds of miles apart.
“It’s great to see Lighthouse Church get a facility they can call their home, with use throughout the week,” says Don Morris, USMB national director. “This area of Denver is in great need of Christ-centered churches that are preaching the gospel. Josh and Brianne have doing that since the beginning, and we have witnessed several people come to know Jesus as a result.”
View a video about Lighthouse Church’s journey to a new location that is also a donor update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9sBK_ezNTY&t=21s
