Today Renovation Community is known as some sort of weird Church/Mission hybrid. We’re part church, with Sunday worship services and an old-fashioned church building. But we’re also part Rescue Mission, helping society’s Under-served and Overlooked by offering showers and laundry facilities, a small clothing and food pantry, counseling, occasional short-term housing, resourcing with governmental Housing connections, offering below-market rent to ethnic minority churches, providing temporary employment, hosting a summer day-camp for low-income families, and on and on it goes.
Renovation Community officially “launched” to the public in October 2018 after an awkward public closure and restart process. Like a sapling sprouting from a decaying tree’s stump, the church I began pastoring here in June 2013 slowly passed away and gave birth to something new.
Although it wasn’t my intention when I arrived, I’d led our congregation down a path to constantly interact with society’s Hurting, Broken, Run Down, and Ignored. Their lives were damaged by poverty, mental illness, addiction, and sin.
We became a community that *needed* and was *committed to* Renovation.
The passing public may have assumed a name change on the sign indicated a new church in the building. In some ways, that’s correct. Much about Renovation Community was new. But MUCH MORE of Renovation Community is old… about 58 years old.
Technically, our current church name is a DBA (“Doing Business As”). It best fits who we are now and what we do. But in the eyes of many government entities (and even our denomination), we’re really the same church that started in 1964: Wedgwood Church of the Nazarene.
Yes, our name and many daily functions changed significantly. And our attendee demographics *definitely* look different. [Out of frame in this photo was a woman who’s been sleeping in her car in our parking lot. She and her dog walked in front of us right before we snapped the picture! :)]
But Renovation Community is still integrally connected with almost 60 years of church history in our Wedgwood neighborhood.
For 35 years Reverend Bill Bowers served here as pastor from 1971-2006.
His wife Jane, and his daughters Susan and Sarah Bowers all faithfully served alongside him. Pastor Bowers oversaw many building expansion projects, strived to serve his congregation as faithfully as he knew how and, with Jane by his side, raised his daughters in the same Parsonage where Kelly and I now raise our boys.
The Wedgwood neighborhood (especially the area immediately surrounding our church building) has changed considerably over the years. I’ve tried (and often failed) to lead our church into those changes.
Bill and I met my first year as a pastor here.
And at that first meeting, what might you expect a man with 35 years of senior pastor experience would say to a kid pastor drowning in a sea of mistakes in the very place the older man had invested decades of his life??
His words permanently seared into my memory, not because of their harshness or critical spirit, but because of their grace and humility…
“I don’t think I could make it as a pastor nowadays. Everything’s changed so much. I don’t know how you young pastors manage it.”
He said something very similar the second time we met.
The Bowers family left a few years before I arrived. But after that first meeting, I knew I wanted them to attend with us again. But the Bowers don’t know how merely to “attend” a church. No, they can do nothing less than *fully invest themselves* in their church home. That’s precisely what they’ve done for several years at their existing congregation; to leave that church and return to ours would only harm the other church. So they’ve remained faithful to their current church family. But I ALWAYS remind them they’re welcome back any time! 😉
Committing to one pastorate for 35 years is rare in today’s church world. I know God calls some pastors to short tenures. But I also know some pastors leave prematurely because long tenures are INCREDIBLY difficult.
Renovation Community’s spiritual and physical foundations were built by spiritual giants who worshiped and served here before me. And I never take their efforts for granted.
To the entire Bowers family,
Thank you.
And thank you for honoring us with your presence again last Sunday.
