Paper found at Oldham Campus
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
In January 2010, Oldham Campus Pastor Kurt Sauder stood with a small group in the vacant Winn Dixie grocery story in the Crestwood Station shopping plaza.
Electrical wires hung from ceiling tiles. Cement floors were littered with bits of drywall damaged from stripping the room of grocery store shelving. Bare
wires hung from light fixtures. The giant room looked more like a vacant warehouse than the future Sanctuary of a church. But it never was about the
building.
Sauder and that small group prayed as they walked through the former store.
“Like Joshua in the Old Testament, we circled the whole area and prayed, ‘God, starting this new campus is all about You. Would You change lives?
Would You do more than we ask or imagine?'”
As they walked through the building, Kurt’s wife, Kristen, noticed a paper stuck in a small hole in the wall. She reached in and pulled out a copy of The
Kentucky Christian News, dated March 1996. The headline on a section front said in big, bold letters, “Southeast Keeps Growing and Growing.”
The article by Deborah Joyce Williams-Smith began, “If the original people had foreseen in 1962 that the church they were attending would grow to
become 10,000 people, they would have been shaking their heads in disbelief. It continued with a quote by now-Senior Minister, Dave Stone: “The main
reason we have grown is the Lord is blessing this church—this is the first and foremost reason.”
A sidebar in that same newspaper was, “Seven Reasons Why I Love a Big Church” by then-Senior Minister Bob Russell.
No one knows who put that paper in the wall, and certainly at that time no one would have imagined that the Winn-Dixie store eventually would close and
be replaced by a Southeast campus. But Sauder, who knew opening the Oldham Campus would involve all kinds of challenges, felt that God used the
article to remind them that He has a plan.
The article further talked about the fact that Southeast has grown because the focus is Jesus.
That focus hasn’t changed in 15 years since the article was printed.
On Easter Sunday, 2009, Southeast opened a regional campus in Indiana. Less than two years later, the Oldham Campus was opened.
“It was as if God was telling us that He has a plan to move in Oldham, Trimble, Jefferson and Shelby Counties,” Sauder said. “We’re seeing Him do that
now.”
On launch day, Jan. 16, 2011, the former grocery store was packed with 2,700 people who attended two services. By the time worship services began,
every chair was filled and people stood along the back and side walls. There were 1,000 more attendees than anticipated.
True to the headline of the paper printed 15 years ago, Southeast “keeps growing and growing.”
Growth at the Oldham Campus meant adding two more worship services and training additional volunteers. Informal surveys showed that the church
was meeting needs for the 30 percent in the neighborhood who did not attend a church.
“We don’t do church to make us feel good,” Sauder told attendees at worship services on June 19. “We do church because there are lots of people who
don’t know Jesus.”
Growth at the campus has been much quicker than anticipated.
“Average weekend attendance is about 2,200,” Sauder said. “In the last six months, there have been more than 140 decisions for Christ, and it’s been
exciting to see what God is doing.”
In the first six months, a Saturday morning Men’s Bible Study has started, Women’s Ministry has kicked off and youth meet each week. Groups huddle to
pray between services and people linger to connect with others long after services end.
“At times, I have to ask myself why I’m surprised,” Sauder said. “We’ve prayed that God would bring people to us. That’s exactly what He’s done.”
On Aug. 21, the Café will open at the Oldham Campus so people can enjoy a cup of coffee and pray, encourage and serve one another.
Sauder believes the campus is moving into yet another chapter.
“If we continue to ask great things of God, He will do more than we ask or imagine,” he said.