How Did We Get Here?
For thirty years, Highland Community Church has been “helping people take the next step in their relationship with Christ” and for thirty years we have been blessed with consistent growth. Now it’s time for Highland’s Wausau Campus to take its next step with a Phase 4 facility addition. We have been asking Highland attenders to pray about God’s leading for The Next Generation since the fall of 2014; but it’s taken much more time than that to get to this point.
Almost as soon as Phase 3 of the Wausau Campus was completed in 2005 there was “talk” of when the next addition would be. This talk resulted from the incredible fact that God quickly filled the new classrooms, Youth Room, and offices. As we prayerfully considered God’s plans for Highland’s outreach, He led us to start a new campus in Weston and provided a school building where we could get started. Attendance at the new Weston Campus school location continuously grew and it became evident that a permanent home would allow ministries to reach more people. God graciously provided the perfect building at a fraction of new cost in 2011.
By 2012, God blessed the Wausau Campus with over 200 children and 160 youth on Wednesday nights and MOPs childcare was limited by the existing nurseries. The “talk” of an addition continued, perhaps with more intensity, however the Lord led the EFCA church in Marathon to start discussions with Highland about becoming our third site making us One Church on Three Campuses. In 2013 the Marathon Campus, as we now know it, was warmly adopted into the Highland family.
In His perfect timing, the Wausau Campus addition discussions were renewed, in earnest, in the fall of 2013 when staff met for an afternoon of brainstorming about the future needs of Highland. Out of those sessions, ideas about a secure children’s wing, visitor-friendly welcome area, and larger meeting space for youth were topics discussed.
By early 2014 a Focus Group convened, representing a variety of ministry areas, and discussed their thoughts for a future addition. By then it was clear that the addition would need to include a children’s ministry area, and so a team from the Focus Group took a day to travel WI looking at some of the quality children’s areas at a variety of larger churches.
Highland has been blessed with three building design professionals who offered their services and have taken the staff input, the Focus Group ideas, the current building design, the available land and building restrictions, and combined them to form viable plans. In fact, just this month the designers, MTLs, Elders, Ministry Leaders, and Staff all met to work toward the goal of putting this project to bid in April.
So, in reality, what seems to have been in the planning for 6 short months started with a step taken 10 years ago as we “talked” and prayed about the Lord’s leading and timing. But we aren’t done yet! We continue to pray and ask you to pray that God will reveal His will for this project and our stewardship to the project. The upcoming months bring the truly exciting part … watching God’s plan unfold to help YOU and me (and those we invite) to take our next step in our walk with Christ.
"The more we invest in our kids, the more hope we’ll have for the future. They are the next generation and if we are equipping them now, they are going to make a better world, reaching people with the gospel. Just being a positive influence in our communities." - Emily Yach