One the Move!

New Life Baptist Church has potentially found her new home! We will be asking our church members to affirm the decision of the pastoral team to approve a move to historic Jermyn Hotel in downtown Scranton.

The second floor of the hotel was converted to a theater about ten years ago. It recently housed the Electric City Theater Company that closed its doors not all that long ago. We will have 24/7 access to the space which includes a large meeting room with wrap around seating, a spacious entry way and foyer, a passenger elevator, and plenty of secondary meeting space. The building also contains 80+ apartments. We are hoping the residents will join us for worship gatherings. They can come right through the building, they don’t even have to go outside.

All along we have been praying for a space like this. We don’t want a fortress but we did and do see the need for kingdom outpost. God has worked everything out for us for such a time as this. We will use it for a ministry tool. We want to host art shows, be involved with Scranton’s First Friday, provide a space for community theater, as well as host talks and movie showings to lead into important conversations. The possibilities would appear to be limitless.

Our Family Resource Center will be housed here. This is strategically very important because the Jermyn is only 2.5 blocks from the geographic center of the city and there is a bus stop right around the corner.

If all goes as planned, we will be signing the lease on April, 16th. We will then the rest of April, May, June and July to get everything ready. We won’t need to do any construction and all we have to do is paint. We will begin holding public worship gatherings in August and have a grand opening on September, 9th. That day will be a grand celebration of God’s care and faithfulness. We are planning something special for the evening of the 9th as well. Stay tuned!

Take some time to watch the video and rejoice with us.

Continuing to lean forward,

Andy