Brand New Church Prepares For New, Larger Building

LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Jeremy Woody is campus director for Brand New Church in Farmington. His full-time job is with Hill Electric. The church is making plans to move into its new facility, the former Oops! and Marvin's IGA grocery store on Main Street in Farmington.
LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Jeremy Woody is campus director for Brand New Church in Farmington. His full-time job is with Hill Electric. The church is making plans to move into its new facility, the former Oops! and Marvin's IGA grocery store on Main Street in Farmington.

By Lynn Kutter

ENTERPRISE-LEADER

BRAND NEW CHURCH

(New Location on June 10)

271 W. Main St.

Farmington, Ark.

Sundays: 9:16 a.m., 11:16 a.m.

Wednesdays: 6:30 p.m.

FARMINGTON -- Brand New Church in Farmington will more than double its space in June when it moves from its location on Southwinds Drive to the vacant, former Marvin's IGA building at 271 W. Main St.

The church has a six-month lease with the owner and then plans to purchase the building in September, according to Jeremy Woody, director of the church's Farmington campus.

According to Washington County property records, the structure was built in 1998. Marvin's IGA was in the building from April 1999 until it closed at the end of October 2014.

After that, the store Oops opened in the building in March 2015, and closed several months later.

Property records show Emily Tan with Oops purchased the building in November 2014, for $975,000. She sold it to current owner Farmington JK LLC in June 2016 for an estimated $1.1 million.

Needing More Space

Brand New Church has outgrown its space on Southwinds, Woody said.

"We're at two services now and just at capacity so we needed a bigger space," Woody said. "We called on this and this was something we could do so here we are."

The Farmington campus has grown from seven people at its original location on Double Springs Road in June 2011 to 300-350 people attending two services on Sunday mornings.

Church members are excited about the new place for many reasons, Woody said.

For one, the church will go from 10,000 square feet at its Southwinds location to about 25,000 square feet in the new building.

It will have a worship auditorium located in the middle of the building that seats 450-500 people. The current building seats 200 people "uncomfortably," Woody said.

The sheer size of the building will give the church the ability to do more and reach more, he added.

The location on U.S. Highway 62 is another plus for the church.

"We watch all these cars go by. We're excited about that."

Building Design

Members and visitors will come into a welcoming area in the front of the church. The west side of the building will have a coffee bar and lobby for people to visit and hang out. Part of the open space on this side of the building probably will be divided into classrooms in the future.

A baptistry also will be located near the front on the west side. Woody said Brand New Church does not have baptisms in the worship center but outside the auditorium and people will crowd around to see someone being baptized.

The church will have a nursery for babies and a separate worship area for children through fifth grade.

The very back area of the building will be used for storage and the church's food pantry, called Mercy Mall. Future plans are to expand the Mercy Mall by using one or two freezers from the former IGA grocery store for meat that can be provided to those in need.

Woody said church members are still discussing how to use the east side of the building. One idea is to install a separate door to the outside and lease the area as retail space.

The goal is to have the church's first service in the new building on June 10.

Pickett Construction is installing walls in the building but members are doing most of the other work on the inside to save money.

Woody said the church hopes to be able to remodel the building for about $75,000.

"We're stretching our sweat equity more than we are our dollars," he said. "We're trying to make those dollars work as much as we can and not make it a huge burden moving in."

Reaching Rural Areas

Brand New Church has three main campuses and an online church. According to Woody, around 800-1,000 people attend the three campuses, located in Bergman, Mountain Home and Farmington. The people being reached goes up dramatically when the online church is added in, he said.

Senior pastor Shannon O'Dell started Brand New Church in Bergman but has since moved his family to Farmington. O'Dell preaches at the 9:16 a.m. service in Farmington on Sunday mornings, flies by helicopter to preach in Bergman at 10:16 a.m. and then returns by helicopter in time to preach again in Farmington at 11:16 a.m.

The Mountain Home campus hears and sees messages through live feed.

The church's mission is "Share the Word and reach the World," Woody said, with a focus on a relationship with Jesus, not religion.

From the beginning, Brand New Church has wanted to reach rural areas.

"That's the season we're multi-sites," Woody said. "We began this desire to reach rural areas and use technology to do so. Where it really started was a population of 88. Obviously, Farmington is bigger but our heart is to continue out into those rural areas. That's always been our desire and we've continued that way."

The Farmington campus was first located in a small building on the property of the former Campbell's Soup factory on Double Springs Road. The church outgrew that building and renovated and moved into another structure on the same property.

It then relocated for two years to a place on the western edge of Fayetteville near the grocery store Aldi on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Woody said church members at the time could not find a place big enough in Farmington.

They returned to Farmington to the Southwinds address in June 2015.

"Our entire goal (all along) was to reach Farmington, what we call the 62 corridor into Prairie Grove and Lincoln," Woody said. "That's why we came back to Farmington. We never wanted to be in Fayetteville. Our heart's desire was to reach Farmington. That's why we started a church in Farmington."

In addition to Sunday services, the church has programs for students and children on Wednesday evenings.

Small groups, called United Groups, meet throughout the week and are developed around people's love for something, Woody said.

"Some drink coffee together, some go to the gym together, some do a book study together. It's anything from Bible study to lifting weights. We build a community over people doing things they love to do together and those happen throughout the week."

For the summer, services will continue at the same times: Sundays -- 9:16 a.m. and 11:16 a.m.; Wednesdays: 6:30 p.m.

General News on 05/16/2018