Growth and Challenges in Mt. Washington, Ohio
An update from Pastor Dustin Nimmo
Christ the King Mt. Washington has officially been launched for 17 weeks. The past few months have been exciting and challenging for many reasons. We have seen many new people begin to attend and more importantly become grafted into the life of the church. We currently have 5 City Groups (small groups), and are hoping to add a sixth at some point in the next few months. Our desire from the beginning is to be a church that looks like the Mt. Washington community and this is beginning to happen. We have people from various socioeconomic levels, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
Some of the challenges we are facing include finding a new space for our church to gather on Sunday mornings. We are getting very close to maxing out our space in the Mt. Washington Rec Center. We need more seats to accommodate more people, and we’re currently working on some possible solutions (more on this below).
The other challenge is finding ourselves in a community where there are very real physical and spiritual needs that need to be met. We have people who are a part of our church community who are impoverished, hungry, jobless, and addicted to drugs. We know God has placed us in Mt. Washington to care for people in physical and spiritual ways, but figuring out how to do this with real people, in real time is proving to be difficult. We want to love all people in the name of Jesus, but is challenging as a small church with limited resources. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Meeting Space
Our plan for meeting space was to move into the gym of the Rec Center as we outgrew our current meeting room. Some rules have changed within the organization that runs the Rec Center which now prevents us from ever moving into the gym. We found this out two months before Easter Sunday, which prevented us from canvasing the Mt. Washington neighborhood to invite people to our church gathering. Our room is fire coded for 91 people and really only has room for 80 chairs, which means any influx of people could leave us turning people away. This was really frustrating for me, as the last thing you want to do as a church planter is not invite people to your church.
I ask you to pray for two potential ways forward for us. Mt. Washington Elementary School is an ideal location, but has not been an option because a lack of custodial availability. I’ve asked them to reconsider and they are doing so this week. The second way forward is leasing a former pool hall in the Mt. Washington business district. The lease price is right, but it will cost us somewhere between $60,000-$100,000 to ready the building for our use. It would be great to have a more permanent foot print in the community, but we currently don’t have the funds to move in this direction.
We need your prayers for wisdom and faith in how to proceed.
We Need Your Help
It has been amazing how God has provided for our church. Our internal giving is strong, and people are giving generously. But we still need your help in order for us to continue growing. Most church plants rely on outside support for up to five years before they are self-sustaining. We especially need financial help to move us forward in finding a new space to meet.
I invite you to prayerfully consider supporting us financially. You can do so at http://christthekingcincinnati.com/give/ . Please designate your gifts for Mt. Washington. For gifts through paypal, type Mt. Washington in the “Add special instructions to the seller” field.
