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Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Salem, Ore., had reached a membership and worship attendance plateau familiar to other ELCA congregations with less-than-adequate facilities

“Physical constraints are a poor excuse for not pursuing Jesus’s ‘Great Commission’ to teach and baptize all nations,” said the Rev. Don Brandt, pastor of Our Savior’s.

The congregation’s members followed their mission statement, “That all might know Christ’s love,” and chose to move out of its 20,000 square-foot facility and build for new life.

Our Savior’s selected MIF financing for land and a new church building, Pr. Brandt explained, because the interest rate offered by MIF was “the best possible,” and the “security of having our denomination [the ELCA] as our loan agency.”

The congregation purchased 10 acres with a $575,000 MIF loan in 1998, and then borrowed $3.1 million from MIF to build a new 38,000 square-foot church building on the land. The congregation finished construction in September 2006.

The congregation hosts a variety of community ministries in its new facility, including the Interfaith Hospitality Network for homeless families, activities for foster children, parenting classes for recovering drug addicts, as well as the congregation’s preschool and kindergarten, community children’s events and a new after-school program for local elementary school students.

The Rev. Tom Hux, also pastor at Our Savior’s, reported that as the congregation has grown in community ministry, worship attendance has grown 20 percent to an average of 500 individuals weekly since the building’s completion. Indeed, at Our Savior’s, more are getting to know Christ’s love!