As God multiplies His church and in our Family, one thing that we need to be mindful of is to have facilities that help facilitate long-term ministry. When a church has an opportunity to acquire a property, it creates a long-term home base to do Gospel ministry. This also communicates to a city that you are staying and to a neighborhood that you are here to help. A lot of the time, these buildings require renovation and work and it’s a tangible way to see renewal. A facility creates a home base to pursue mission through preaching, service and through incarnation into a local context.
Currently, two churches within the Citylight Family, Lincoln and Mosaic, are in the process of purchasing facilities. Citylight Lincoln has over 600 college students and 600 adults and have space and seating for half of that. In some cases, they are turning families and students away. Pastors are now offering multiple gatherings but there still isn’t enough room for people to hear the Gospel. When there isn’t enough room it communicates ‘we don’t have the room for you’ and ‘we aren’t going to do the work to make room for you.’ So when a building became available for them to facilitate ministry, we celebrate this in our Family! It’s a massive step of faith for Lincoln’s congregation and will allow more people to hear about Jesus, receive Jesus and get baptized in the name of Jesus and then get sent out to help plant churches for Jesus’ Glory.
Citylight Mosaic has been given the opportunity to purchase their building right in the heart of the city and we celebrate this as a Family for so many reasons. One is there are few Gospel-centered churches in the inner-city context. As they step forward in faith, God is providing for them financially and has given them favor through an amazing church family that is now handing over the keys to the building at an affordable price.
Citylight Mosaic
The vision of Mosaic is to plant a bilingual church that exists to multiply diverse disciples and churches, unified by the gospel of Jesus. Launched in 2020, a partnership was formed with a local church in the historic Field Club neighborhood. The church had been there for several generations and graciously offered their second service time slot on Sunday mornings to Mosaic. Over the course of a year, discussion began between leadership on the possibility of selling the building to Mosaic. In June of this year, Mosaic announced that a deal was organized and that they were under contract!
Jacob Richardson, Lead Pastor at Mosaic, shared, “After years of prayer, God has opened the door for us to purchase the building we have been meeting in! What a powerful truth to consider this building is 99 years old, meaning it has been home to followers of Jesus during the Great Depression and World War II. God is faithful by doing a great work in and through this building in the past and we are confident He will continue to do a great work through us. We ask ‘God would you bring new life into an old building?'”
If you are interested in being a part of this next step, join their family by supporting Mosaic’s Building Fund.
Citylight Lincoln
Citylight Lincoln Church was planted in 2016 with a prayer to see Lincoln deeply impacted by the Gospel and moved to go make disciples from our neighborhoods to the nations. Since then, God has used Citylight to build disciples and plant other churches (one is planting their first church this year!) throughout Lincoln, and now find themselves at capacity.
“We believe the next step we are being called to is to move to a new location to create more space to see more people meet Jesus & grow in Him. We have seen the evidence that in our current building we are not able to reach out to people or to plant churches the way God is calling us to. We know that with the increase of space we will have the tools to impact and be a part of the Gospel transforming lives throughout our city and world on a whole new level.” – Citylight Lincoln Leadership
The opportunity to purchase an old carpet warehouse building on 48th & Vine became available this year and Citylight Lincoln is taking the next steps to purchase the building. You are invited to join this movement of disciples multiplying disciples. Learn more on Lincoln’s Building Project.
