Community is at the core of The Heights Church

For the past several months, community members in Airway Heights have been working hard to prepare for the inaugural service of The Heights Church coming up Sunday, Sept. 8.

Jacob Powers, the pastor at The Heights Church, said 40 to 50 church members have helped throughout the prep period, and that they’re ready to hit the ground running for the first service.

“They’re involved and dedicated,” he said.

Powers, a pastor at Life Center North in Spokane, first contemplated the idea of beginning a sister church in Airway Heights about two years ago. No stranger to the West Plains, Powers is an Eastern graduate who came to his faith at the age of 25. Life Center North is a sister Foursquare church to Life Center, whose main campus is near Spokane Falls Community College.

“I kind of lived that wild crazy lifestyle for a lot of years and then when I met my wife and started going to church, there was a massive turnaround,” he said. “And I want to see more people experience that.”

Throughout the last two years, Powers and other church members have taken online classes and read books about starting churches as well as seeking advice from others in the congregation. He also consulted and prayed regularly with the senior pastor at Life Center North about the decision.

“We were able to talk and get to know each other, lean on each other, and we’re all right about at that stage of launching our churches,” Powers said.

Since selling their home last year and moving to Airway Heights, Powers has taken community involvement to heart. He’s on the parks board and helped organize the inaugural Airway’s Got Talent show a couple of weekends ago at the Airway Heights Festival. The show received prize funding from the Kiwanis club, of which Powers is also a member.

For now, services will be held Sundays at DAA Northwest on 2215 S. Hayford Rd., at 10 a.m.

On staff to start off is Powers and his wife Kym, Alissa Adams, Troy Phifer and Gabriel Cortez, Jr. Altogether, there’s a core of 13 core members helping to jumpstart the church in its beginning stages.

Powers said it’s a different world today where neighbors don’t interact and there aren’t many ties holding a community together.

“Knowing people, talking to people, coming outside their homes and living together, I think that’s what a church helps bring to a community. As a world, I think we’re moving away from that,” he said.

Young adults, however, especially those in their 20s he argues, are hungry for that type of interaction, living and truly growing in their community. That’s the type of energetic congregation Powers has seen while in Spokane, and among those working to help get The Heights Church going.

“We had a group that just meshed and people caught that vision,” he said.

This month, the church launched four Bible study groups throughout the West Plains, bringing the congregation together on a smaller level to build relationships and strengthen convictions. One or two are in Medical Lake, one in Airway Heights, another on Fairchild Air Force Base and one to the north of Airway Heights.

Powers is expecting a large turnout for the first service, especially with support from the other Life Center congregations in Spokane.

For more information about The Heights Church, visit their website at http://www.theheightschurch.net or see them on Facebook.

James Eik can be reached at james@cheneyfreepress.com.