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"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goes and sells all that he hath, and buys that field." ." Mat 13:44 |
The Story of The Pearl
West Side Christian Church, the oldest Independent Christian Church congregation in the Denver metro area (founded in 1913), was literally dying. The membership was advancing in age and new church growth was not taking place. Nor was the church impacting the local community, which had become increasingly multi-ethnic and lower income over the past 2 decades. In fact, few in the community even knew that the church was there. On a chilly March morning in 2004, the elders and staff of the church came to the conclusion that something must be done — no matter the cost. The church needed to reclaim its work in the Kingdom of God . The local community must be reached with the Gospel. Thus, The Pearl was born and took Matthew 13:45,46 as its guide. We mortgaged our one asset, our building, in order to finance this re-plant, and we are not looking back. The Kingdom of God is too important.
The Pearl is a re-plant of West Side Christian Church. It’s focus is impacting the local community for Christ by being a dynamic, multi-ethnic, urban congregation. We launched on October 3rd, 2004 and now instead of being a dying, monoethnic congregation, we are a growing, multi-ethnic church. Our members come from many different nations and many different walks in life. We think that that's what heaven will be like anyway so we better do our part to realize it on earth!
It has not been an easy chore for us to do this. We lost approximately 1/2 of our congregation by making this transition, but we are not looking back. We have received great encouragement from other churches and have received outstanding publicity because of what we are doing. Our story was featured as a front-page story in The Denver Post because of our efforts. The 5 o’clock Latino news (Univision) also did a story on us. KLOVE radio featured us for a day on their nationally-syndicated program. The Christian Standard also ran our story as the lead story in their section entitled “The Buzz”. Churchcentral.com featured us as a front page story, and Christianity Today ran the story in their July 2005 edition.
Was "buying" The Pearl worth it? You better believe it!
