In late 2022, as mission work was beginning in Conroe, Texas, and our core group began inviting their friends, relatives, acquaintances, and neighbors to join us for Bible study and worship, we regularly heard multiple versions of the same phrase: “I’m interested. But come back and ask again when you’re in a permanent space.”
Many were genuinely interested. However, the physical places to which we were inviting them—someone’s living room, a rented community room, or a funeral home chapel (where we held worship for over two years)—all had one thing in common. By our own admission, none of these places were where we wanted to set up ministry permanently. That created a perception that we were not yet an established church. That perception had an impact on our community, and an understandable one.
Somewhere between 30 and 70 percent of new Christian churches in America close their doors within five years of opening.
In our area, where a great variety of Christian denominations and non-denominational churches are planting churches regularly, that statistic has helped create a general skepticism toward new churches. Even many who are looking for a church home are reluctant to engage with them. Rather than invest emotionally in a church that may not be there in five years, they believe it’s better to wait and see if its ministry presence becomes a permanent fixture in the community.
As we were learning of this perception’s strong prevalence in our mission field, God was developing for us some unusual opportunities compared to what a WELS Home Mission is typically able to do in its early years of ministry.
Just two months after the church was established in 2022, nearly 22 acres of buildable and beautiful land on a prominent road traveled by thousands of people every day was donated to the church. WELS mission churches are typically able to start looking for land four or five years after the mission begins.
A short time later, another significant donation was given to be used exclusively to help with the construction of a worship space on that land. WELS mission churches are typically in a financial position to begin this process in the sixth or seventh year of their existence.
As our core group discussed this rare opportunity with the donor and our WELS District Mission Board, we determined that, if possible, we would like to construct a building that visually communicated one particular quality: permanence.
We hoped to construct a building that looked like it had been there for years, and would be there for many years to come, believing that the visual perception of permanence would have a significantly positive impact on our ability to connect souls to the gospel.
Under God’s gracious guidance and blessing, we were able to accomplish that goal. We started planning for the building in early 2023, held our first worship service in August 2025, and quickly saw just how powerful the perception of permanence really is.
Average worship attendance in our previous rented space (the funeral home chapel) was about 50 souls per weekend. In the new space, average attendance instantly nearly doubled, and now around 140 individuals worship with us around the means of grace each week.
Each weekend since August, at least one new person has walked into church to worship with us for the first time. Most often, when we ask what brought them to us, they mention the building, its attractiveness, and the positive perceptions it conveyed to them as they drove by.
While we pray the new building will be around for a long time to attract souls to our campus, we all know that no building lasts forever, and this new worship space won’t be the exception. Jesus once assured his disciples that even the large and impressively constructed temple in Jerusalem would one day be entirely destroyed.
But the assurance of our Savior’s completed work, that all sins are forgiven, that death is defeated, that God will one day wipe every tear from our eyes, that heaven is our true and lasting home, and that the God who provides these permanent blessings to us at no cost is also with us daily—guiding, guarding, and providing for us—each step of the way home . . . these aren’t just perceptions.
These assurances are promises fulfilled by our faithful God.
In Jesus, we have something better than the perception of permanence.
We have the promise of permanence. The promise of permanent and eternal blessings we find only through him.
With or without a building, this promise is what provides everlasting stability for each person. We are grateful that, in this particular mission field, at this particular time, God has provided a way to connect that promise with many souls who need to hear it.
Written by Rev. Jeremy Mattek, pastor at TheMission – a Lutheran Church in Conroe, Texas.
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