News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Bend Church in Cookeville is moving to the old OfficeMax building on South Jefferson Avenue after a rapid increase in attendance.
Lead Pastor Shane Warren said the church is so packed out during services that space has become a problem. Warren said the former retail outlet will allow the church to address capacity and parking issues.
“When this property became available we were able to cut a deal on it,” Warren said. “What it does is it gives us the opportunity to immediately enlarge our capacity. We are building an auditorium that immediately will seat over 850 adults.”
Warren said the church still owns and plans to build a church on the 40-acre property off of South Maple Avenue. Warren said the immediate need will delay the timeline for the construction of the church.
“This building will take the pressure off of us and give us time to do that,” Warren said. “If we had all the money available today and could move right now it would take a year and a half to two years to get that project done anyway.”
Warren said the plans are finished for the South Maple Avenue property. He said after officials bid the project, the church was not comfortable moving forward with acquiring a loan that a majority of the payments would be to cover the interest.
“We felt like the loan interest was at a point that we just felt it unreasonable to make that leap at the moment,” Warren said. “We just don’t feel it’s wise at our stage of the game to give the great majority of the payment to interests when people are donating their funds toward helping the community and trying to share the love of Christ with the world and we just want to make sure we are trying to be a very wise steward of that.”
Warren said the South Maple Avenue plan has been put on hold for now as they are still in the process of moving. Warren said the goal with the new location is to expand the growth and get the legs back under the church.
