Long after our school doors close and everyone heads home for the weekend, our campus doors open to welcome two congregations to worship on Sunday.

Our campus is used for a variety of events that have nothing to do with WCA athletics or academics. These events range from political rallies to pee-wee sports events to Sunday worship services. Westminster charges rent for the use of the facilities.

“They are benefiting by having a space to meet at a much lower cost than using their own facility, and we are benefiting by having some help covering some of our building expenses,” said Todd Fuller, Westminster Director of Finance and Operations.

Of all of the organizations that use Westminster’s building, the congregations that hold Sunday services here, The Church on the Rock and Gateway Orthodox Presbyterian are most aligned with our school’s mission.

“We believe that God has provided us with facilities for kingdom work.  The primary work is carrying out our mission to prepare more young people to engage the world and change it for Jesus Christ, but when we have the opportunity to use our facility for other kingdom work (such as worship services) we want to support that as well,” said Fuller.

In all, almost 500 people go to church at our campus every Sunday. Gateway Presbyterian Church uses the choir room for Christian education at 9:45 AM and worship at 11 AM.

“The majority of worshippers, however, come to campus to attend Church on the Rock, which worships in the theater at 12:30 pm. “The Rock” also makes good use of the Blackbox theater which they transform each Sunday into a worship area for children. Complete with a Wii, many other toys, games, and it’s own worship band, it is a valuable space for them to use. They also use the eighth grade commons and planning area as a nursery.

Worship and Sunday-school for young teens takes place in the café. “We have a unique youth center that allows all people, regardless of their race or economic background the opportunity to learn about God in a way that keeps it interesting,” said Mark Supak, Church on the Rock Youth Pastor.

According to Supak, though only about twenty teens attend this middle-school service, attendance at the 7th through 12th grade service at the main Church on the Rock campus, in St. Peters, averages over 200 weekly.

Church on the Rock kicked off its adult worship service with about 20 minutes of contemporary worship, and then pastor David Blunt came out and started his service.

Blunt walked out onto the stage like any other pastor, but then he sat down on the stage with his feet hanging off the edge, opened the Bible, and started to teach about Scripture.

Later, a member of the congregation explained why she attended Church on the Rock.

“I attend because the way he teaches scripture makes it so much easier to understand and translate God’s word into my life” said a member of the congregation.

Though most of the classrooms are locked, all of our hallways, commons, and gyms are open for the churches to use.  Various churches have been using our campuses for over 20 years and, according to Fuller, there have not been any significant issues of misuse of WCA’s facilities.

“The churches do a good job of treating our building as their own and making sure things are secured and well supervised,” said Fuller.