After much discussion, seeking the Lord’s mind, and prayer, the Elder board has made the difficult decision to push ‘pause’ on the Odenton Campus. What does it mean to push ‘pause’? In short, we are temporarily stopping our Odenton Campus with the hopes of relaunching in the future. There are two primary reasons for pushing ‘pause’:
The lack of a facility has hindered Odenton’s growth.Jason Barthelemy, our Odenton Campus Pastor, along with Jeff Supp, our Executive Pastor, and two different real estate agents have been diligently searching for a facility for several years. Potential locations have either been out of our price range or the owner would not lease to a church. Though the high school initially served us well, it presents a barrier to growth, despite the week-in-week-out work that many of our Odenton family have put in to make it the best space possible.
We’ve learned some things about the Odenton area that has limited growth.Campuses are part of our strategy to reach this region. In launching campuses, we are believing God for them to grow. In the first couple of years, we experienced some short-term growth. However, over the last 18 months, that growth has slowly been declining. Some weeks have been higher in attendance than others, some new people have come while others have left. But the overall trajectory has been slowly going down. We’ve learned that the ‘spiritual soil’ in Odenton is harder than we anticipated. Also, the transient nature of the Odenton area has made it challenging to help people stick to our campus. In spite of all that our Odenton family has done over the years to try and reach people, the Lord has just not provided the growth.
So, in sum, the lack of a 24/7 facility, our slow decline in attendance, the transient nature of Odenton, and the hard ‘spiritual soil’ have led us to reevaluate the future of the Odenton Campus and press ‘pause’ for now. They will continue to meet until
May 25 and then we are encouraging our Odenton family to rejoin us back at the Annapolis Campus. We will continue to search for a facility until the end of the calendar year. If the Lord provides and leads us to a location, we will move to re-launch the Odenton Campus in the near future.
All of our Odenton staff will transition back into Annapolis Campus roles. Jason will be transitioning out of his Campus Pastor role and into a new permanent role at the Annapolis Campus as our Family and Care Pastor, overseeing our Marriage Ministry and Care Network alongside Kammi and Jeff, as well as interfacing with our deacons and helping with weddings and funerals. We’re excited to have him serve our church family in this way.
Brendan Cothran will also take on a new role. As you may know, we’ve been searching for a Worship Pastor/Director since last August. After observing Brendan fruitfully serve as the Interim Worship Director, we opened the door for Brendan to apply for this role. After completing our search team interview process, we feel the Lord’s hand is on Brendan to lead our Worship and Production teams. We want to be clear that the timing of Brendan’s role change is not directly linked to the pausing of the Odenton Campus. These two changes were independent of one another but happened around the same time.
Thank you for taking the time to hear our heart in this decision. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at:
info@bayareacc.org
