By Abbey Rodriguez | FāVS News Reporter
The Presbytery of the Inland Northwest has recently finished the first cohort of the Ezra 3 Project, which is part of the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative. The project aims to empower churches, particularly those facing declining membership, to realign the use of their physical spaces with needs of the local communities they serve.
The Presbytery received the grant from the Lilly Foundation in November 2023 and has plans to run the program through winter of 2026 according to PINW’s website.
Katie Stark, missional expediter for the Presbytery and the grant writer, explained that many of the congregations within the PINW have experienced a decline in membership and therefore often have more building space than they can use. The Ezra 3 Project aims to help congregations identify their key value to remain a thriving congregation while opening their doors to needs expressed by community members.
Project implementation
Cohort one began in spring 2024 and consisted of churches with 50 or fewer members. Five congregations — Spirit Lake Presbyterian Church, Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church, Reardan Presbyterian Church, Emmanuel Presbyterian Church and Korean Presbyterian Church — joined together to create cohort one.
As cohort members, these congregations worked through the Rooted Good curriculum together, meeting five times over the course of the year.
“That curriculum guides them first to look at their identity […] we lead them through some exercises where they look at their history and remind themselves of who they’ve always been,” Stark said.
Once these congregations have identified who they are as a congregation, Partners for Sacred Places visits each church and offers “feedback on the building and the things that the congregations could do to make their space more friendly for outside users,” Stark said.
Additionally, Partners for Sacred Places leads a community conversation between congregations and their neighbors to brainstorm how these church buildings could be used by the entire community. Stark explained that this discernment process can take anywhere from six to seven months. Once the church identifies how to best serve the community with their physical space, they can apply for a $10,000 seed grant to cover costs of the project.
The second year of the project focuses on implementation. Stark said that while ideas are great, “implementing [them] is really hard.” Each church is provided a coach who helps “brainstorm through obstacles and figure out next steps so that they actually are able to do the project that they had the idea for.”
Each congregation developed a unique project to meet the specific needs of their surrounding communities.
Churches and their community projects
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church decided to expand a pre-existing partnership with If You Could Save Just One, a local nonprofit that supports at-risk youth and families.
Prior to the Ezra 3 Project, Just One operated out of a garage space owned by Lidgerwood Presbyterian.
When discussing the role that Lidgerwood played in the local community, Mark Wheeler, pastor of Lidgerwood, said that “we want to have an impact in our neighborhood that lasts longer than our presence in the neighborhood and maybe even the church’s existence in the neighborhood.”
Wheeler explained that Lidgerwood was planted by what is now Fourth Memorial Church specifically to serve youth and children. As their congregation has aged, “this is our way of maintaining that original mission, not ourselves, but by partnering with If You Could Save Just One.”
Following the Ezra 3 Project curriculum, Lidgerwood has shared more building space with Just One entirely free of charge.
Wheeler emphasized that the church “explored lots of things, talked to lots of neighbors, local community and city leaders” to determine what the community needed most.
Lidgerwood is using their $10,000 seed grant funds “to make our place more accessible and amenable to outside groups using our building,” Wheeler said .
“The church as a whole would emphasize the gift it is to the church to be connected to [Just One] and the impact that that has on our families and on our neighborhoods,” he said.
Emmanuel Presbyterian Church has also developed a community project to support their neighbors.
Emmanuel continued their long-term partnership with Northwest Cooperative Preschool while also renting out their fellowship hall to Foundation Church on Sunday mornings.
Emmanuel Pastor Alyssa Bell said that “the Ezra 3 project encouraged us to talk to community leaders in our neighborhood, to talk to our community, to kind of adopt a listening posture, to listen to stories within our congregation and to really ask the question, what could our building be used for in this neighborhood?”
Bell furthered that Emmanuel was looking for a project that would meet the “actual needs around us but also to bring in extra streams of revenue, which we need as a small congregation.”
The Northwest Cooperative Preschool had been using the Emmanuel basement for almost 35 years and decided to “live into doing this more,” Bell said.
Additionally, Emmanuel has recently begun renting their fellowship hall to Foundation Church. Emmanuel’s service is held at 9:30 a.m. in the sanctuary and Foundation’s service is held at 10:30 a.m. in the fellowship hall, which Bell said, “so far [has] been a really great relationship.”
Emmanuel has used their $10,000 seed grant to paint the fellowship hall and stage area to hopefully “make that space more usable and hospitable for groups that would want to use it,” Bell said.
These renovations will not only benefit Foundation Church but will also benefit the preschool, allowing them to use the stage for children’s programs, Bell said.
“People have really taken ownership of it and started to recognize the life that it (the Ezra 3 Project) brings to our building and how exciting it is when lots of people are using it,” she said.
Never miss a story. Get the top headlines, breaking news, commentaries, and handpicked favorites delivered straight to your inbox every morning. Subscribe to our quick, free and informative FāVS News Daily Newsletter.
