no doubt, the #1 question i get asked regarding the beginning phases of eikon church is, “when & where do you meet?”
let me answer that question in two parts:
- never.
- nowhere.
does that help? :)
ok, so that may be a bit of an overstatement… let me answer those a little more accurately.
we actually will meet. to a degree, just like any other church meets. in fact, we hope that our gatherings will be incredible times of worship and community-building and a lot of fun. it’s just that they’re a little ways off and not immediately occurring.
right now, eikon church is in the very, very beginning phases of a much bigger process of starting a church. there are definitely churches that just begin by meeting monthly or weekly, but most of the time, there’s a process that begins with disseminating information which then leads to gathering a core group and then moving toward regular gathering times—usually in the form of small groups and eventually big group, sunday worship gatherings.
so obviously, we’re in the very initial phases which, through the temporary website here, we’re trying to get information out about the church, share core values, introduce you to the leadership and offer answers to questions much like this post is doing.
as for down the road, like i said, we hope that our regular sunday worship gatherings will be very important times for our faith community. they will be times of creative worship (music, art, film, poetry, preaching, etc.), connecting with people you know as well as others who are new and we hope to also make our gathering times just a fun and relaxed time.
as details emerge as far as meeting places and times, our website (hopefully the fully realized version very soon) will be the place for definitive announcements. in the meantime, you can help us out in this area.
we have two primary options for our regular gathering place.
1. we can borrow/rent space from an existing establishment. for example, we will look into a bar who is closed on sunday morning or night (we’re open to meeting either sunday morning or sunday night…in other words, we’re not locked into sunday mornings). maybe there’s a concert venue/bar here in town that would let us use their facilities for a few hours each sunday. maybe there’s a coffeehouse who has ample meeting space and would let us borrow/rent it.
2. we can lease a space that is solely ours to use. we are looking in the downtown-ish area. specifically, we’d love to meet in the river market district or maybe a little further southwest in the heart of downtown. midtown is a definite area of interest, as well as the quapaw/governor’s mansion area. keep in mind, we’re a church that is committed to the city, primarily, and don’t really have the desire to meet in west little rock or the outskirts of the city.
so, you can help us out. do you own a facility as described in option 1? do you know someone who owns something like that? do you know of some reasonably priced commercial space in the described area that would fit well for a gathering place of 50-200ish people? we’d love some feedback. any and all ideas are welcome. while our search has been and will continue to be ongoing, we’d love some input. it’s not easy to find an affordable and adequate space in downtown little rock, so all leads are good leads.
so, that gets you caught up to speed. as we near time to begin regular meeting times (first, with small groups and then with big groups), we’ll keep you informed. keep checking back for the latest!