Expanding Its Reach

PART OF THE VISION of Overlake Christian Church has been starting new congregations. It already has planted eight daughter churches since 1980. The Rev. Bob Moorehead, senior pastor of the church in Kirkland, said Overlake would like to launch offshoots in Pierce and Kitsap counties and as far as Spokane in Eastern Washington. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Overlake Christian Church, the hugely successful evangelical church on the Eastside, is laying the groundwork to expand its reach statewide.

The Rev. Bob Moorehead, senior pastor of the conservative, nondenominational church in Kirkland, said Overlake would like to start new offshoots in Pierce and Kitsap counties and as far as Spokane in Eastern Washington.

Moorehead gave no specific timetable for the expansion, except to say church leaders are hoping to plant one new daughter church a year once it moves to its planned new home in Redmond. Overlake still is in the process of obtaining a building permit from the city of Redmond for the proposed 5,500-seat sanctuary near the Sammamish River. Once it obtains the permit, the church could begin construction in March, he said.

The startup of new congregations around the area has been part of Overlake's long-range vision for years. It already has planted eight daughter churches since 1980. Overlake officials are eyeing the Auburn area for a ninth church, which probably will be established in another 18 months, Moorehead said.

Church attendance appears to be going up in general as baby boomers, now with children, or those who have never gone to church but are searching for meaning in their lives, begin to show up in Puget Sound area pews.

But the area still ranks as one of the most unchurched regions in the country. Surveys have reported only about one-third of Washington residents regularly go to church, compared to 55 percent nationally.

Into that void has stepped, most noticeably, Overlake, a church known for strict adherence to Scripture and its rigorous outreach to the surrounding community. Its present facility on 132nd Avenue Northeast in Kirkland sometimes draws more than 8,000 people to weekend services. It is believed to be the largest Protestant church in the Northwest.

Since it was founded in 1968 by eight Eastside couples who wanted a church that focused on Bible-based preaching, Overlake has developed a textbook model for church expansion. It begins with the simplest of gestures: inviting friends, neighbors and colleagues to church.

The results can be seen in the opening of Overlake's latest daughter church, Canyon Hills Community Church in Bothell. The church opened Oct. 15 and already is drawing up to 950 people - including 350 children - to its two Sunday services. The congregation worships in the auditorium of Canyon Park Junior High School.

"Things are phenomenal. I'll tell you, it's surpassed all of our expectations," said the Rev. Steve Walker, the church's pastor.

Two months before the church even opened its doors, Overlake leaders were knocking on the doors of residents from Bothell to Brier, letting them know the new church was on its way and trying to find out what the residents' spiritual and physical needs might be.

About half the people attending Canyon Hills transferred from Overlake to cut down on their commute time or to be in on the ground floor of starting up a new church.

For Guy and Pamela Conversano of Cottage Lake, the attraction was watching a "baby church" grow and become a positive influence in the local community. Guy Conversano, a civil structural engineer and elder at Overlake, said his new church would like to nourish residents spiritually first and foremost, but also intends to help serve local needs for food, clothing and other services.

As it has done with each of its daughter churches, Overlake gave Canyon Hills Community Church $100,000 to $150,000 in seed money for rent, sound and musical equipment, communion ware and Sunday school literature. It will pay Walker's salary for the first year. But Moorehead stressed Overlake is not creating its own denomination. The church will cut the umbilical cord with Canyon Hills, as it has with its other daughter churches, after 18 months. By then Canyon Hills should be self-sufficient, though Overlake will remain available for help, Moorehead said.

Moorehead said Overlake is not interested in competing with existing churches. But if other churches are moribund and uninterested in evangelism, people have the right to leave a "dead church and go to a live one . . . What we don't want is people leaving good churches to come to our daughter churches." Moorehead said Overlake looks to start churches in areas with growing populations and relatively few churches.

The Rev. Rick Morse, pastor of Lake Washington Christian Church in Kirkland, a Disciples of Christ congregation that is unrelated to Overlake Christian Church, said he had no problem with Overlake planting new churches. "They are a great church, they do a lot of great things in our community," though Overlake tends not to be broadly ecumenical in doing so, he said.

Morse noted that Overlake, with its fundamentalist theology, "is not the church for everybody . . . That is why it is good we have a lot of churches in our community for people to choose from." Morse is a co-founder of the Interfaith Alliance of Washington, a group that upholds religious diversity and seeks to provide an alternative voice to the religious right.

Walker, the Canyon Hills pastor, said what people will find if they come to his church is a celebratory worship service centered in Scripture. Some church-growth experts, he said, say church should be as comfortable and unchurchlike as possible to attract nonchurch-goers. But he asserted some ministers interpret that to mean they should deliver safe and unoffensive messages from the pulpit.

In his view, however, "We are sensing in the '90s a desire to return to traditional biblical values . . . I think when people come to church, deep down inside they are looking for someone to give them some answers. We believe those answers are in God's word, the Bible."

In addition to Scripture readings and the sermon, worship services feature a mix of traditional hymns and contemporary Christian songs. A "Kids Alive" Sunday school program is offered for the children, said Walker, 34, formerly Overlake's pastor of evangelism.

In planting daughter churches, Moorehead said Overlake officials look for preachers who are strong leaders and good teachers. The church also seeks pastors who have a passion "for people who are lost in sin" and want to lead them to Christ, Moorehead said.

Overlake already has planted churches in Federal Way, Kent, Bellevue, Issaquah, central Seattle, Everett and two in Bothell. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To get information

Canyon Hills Community Church meets for worship at 9 and 10:45 a.m. Sundays at Canyon Park Junior High, 23723 23rd Ave. S.E., Bothell. The church's office is at 22121 17th Ave. S.E., Suite 225, Bothell. For more information, call 488-4121.