River City Church needs more pews

River City Church in Lewiston is facing a dilemma most churches would envy.

With a congregation that is outgrowing its walls, church leaders have decided to put the historic church up for sale and look for new digs.

The Rev. Moses Latella said the church has been appraised for $1.1 million, but it is being listed for $989,000.

"We've outgrown the space," Latella said. "It's been a great building for us; really served us well. Sometimes you're not sure what to do first, but we decided to put it on sale and see what might open up for us in the future."

Latella said there are plans in the works for a new location, but he could not discuss those at this time.

"We're exploring other possibilities for space," he said. "We're growing and we're blessed and so we're just looking to see if we can make room for more people that might want to be a part of us."

The 17,180-square-foot building, located at 707 Seventh Ave., holds 326 people at a time, but Latella said average Sunday attendance is about 441. There are about 800 members, however, and he has seen people stop in on a Sunday morning, look around at the crowd and walk back out because there was no room for them to sit.

Latella said part of the reason for the church's growth in the past 20 years might have something to do with its prime location next to Lewis-Clark State College, and church leaders have discussed whether moving to another location might change that somewhat.

The church has a vigorous campus ministry, as well as operating a dance and arts school on Second Avenue.

"We don't want to do anything that would make us less effective," he said, "but whenever we've done off-site stuff it's always worked well for us. So I think the location helps us to a certain degree. But we've found that wherever there's a lot of acceptance and love and life, people are attracted to that.

"We hope to have the right culture and hopefully we're not dependant on a building to be who we are."

The River City Church building is one of the oldest church buildings in Lewiston, he said, constructed in the early 1900s.

At one time the building housed a Church of Christ congregation. Then in 1995 the Fifth Street Fellowship combined with the Lewiston Christian Life church and formed River City Church.

Latella is one of five pastors; head pastor is Kevin Beeson.

The non-denominational church is focused on families and youth and the average age is between 30 and 35, he added.

"Our vision statement is to change the world for Jesus, one person at a time," he said, by focusing on every person who comes through the door.

The church also has a global social justice program with 19 ministry partners throughout the world. Latella said River City Church has sent people from the Lewiston congregation on missions to Japan, Africa and other countries.

"Basically we're about relationships, whether it's across the world or with one another. Everything flows through relationships and we work hard on helping people have good, healthy relationships. We want to get people in a relationship environment outside Sunday morning where they can learn to interact and grow and be part of something a little bit bigger than themselves, which is really important."

Latella said anyone interested in purchasing the church building may contact him at (208) 743-7101 or Rhonda Laybourne at Century 21 real estate office.

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Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com (208) 983-2326.