Whether you are a member or a guest of Rocky Creek, we want to keep you informed during this time of transition in the Fall of 2018. Rocky Creek continues to celebrate spiritual and numerical growth, and the church must provide space for current growth and plan now for continued growth in the future.
As we look forward to our future, here are some helpful pieces of information to keep you informed and equipped.
In order to provide the capacity to make more disciples, Rocky Creek currently needs these three things:
- Open Doors,
- Empty Chairs, &
- Willing Hearts.
Let’s unpack what these entail and what it possibly means for you.
OPEN DOORS
Our current building renovation project intends to increase capacity and flexibility to disciple more people. We are landlocked outside and crammed inside. This 4-phase project seeks to work within these restrictions and get creative with how to accommodate current and future growth.
- In April 2017, we added the 9:00 worship service and 10:30 groups.
- In August 2017, we added Sunday and Wednesday evening groups.
- In April 2018, we added the 10:30 Spanish worship service.
- In May 2018, we were out of space again at our 10:30 English service and people were walking away without a place to sit.
In our location and within our campus, we only saw a few options:
- Close the doors for new people and accept the fact we were out of worship space (but we knew there are more people who need the gospel),
- Build a bigger facility (but we knew that would be limited by campus space and it would prove to be expensive for the limited additional space it would actually provide at this time),
- Move worship times around (but we knew an earlier hour for worship would actually decrease attendance and segregate generations),
- Have a unified discipleship hour (but we knew that our classroom space and preschool space will soon run out, and our children’s gathering space is already at max capacity as they meet at only one hour), or
- Get flexible.
We decided to do the best we could with the space we have. We want the worship doors to be open wide! Our sanctuary and multipurpose rooms renovation (Phase 1 & 3) will begin in August and take approximately 3 months to complete. It is more cost-effective and time-efficient to do both projects at once and for us to vacate the areas during the time of construction.
Starting in August 26, we will have English services in the gym at 9:00 and 10:30 AM.
The service times will stay the same but the location will change. The plan is for the construction of Phase 1 and 3 to be finished in December.
Some items to consider:
- Relocated Classrooms – To accommodate Gospel Groups with mobility issues, some classes will be temporarily relocated. The senior adult groups that meet in the chapel will be moved to the first floor to minimize the amount of stairs and distance between worship and groups.
- Repositioned Parking – Some of our handicapped parking will need to transition temporarily to accommodate these changes. Some of the neglected parking spaces will now become prime spots. We encourage all those able to park as far away from the gym as possible to allow our guests and elderly to park as close as they can.
- Rerouted Traffic – How you travel to worship and to your Gospel Groups will change regarding internal traffic patterns. The hallway from the multipurpose room to the other side of the sanctuary will be closed. Doors outside and hallways above and below will still be operational, but consider your best way to navigate during this time.
- Reassembled Worship – We are grateful to have a space like the gym to worship, but it is a different space visually and acoustically. To avoid as much echo and noise as possible, our services will be simplified during this time.
- Rescheduled Events – By setting up hundreds of chairs and installing a sound system in the gym, weekly events in the gym will need to be postponed. The staff is working with all groups to help find a temporary place to meet.
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.