In the fall of 2013, we launched Response Church with a small core in a living room. Our aim was to be a family of believers in Jesus that live our whole lives in response to the Gospel by worshiping God, loving one another, and serving together on God’s mission. By the grace of God and the faithful devotion of our community to Jesus, we have become an established, elder-led and unified community from all walks of life.
Our church consists of young and growing families, retirees, grandparents, young professionals and a significant amount of people coming out of homelessness, incarceration, and/or addiction. But, despite our different backgrounds, it is a testament to the power of the Gospel to see everyone operate as one family in Jesus and experience significant life transformation. And we are convinced that our God is just getting started with us.
The ministries of our church consist of missional communities, Hope House, prison ministry, recovery groups, homeless ministry at the Aviator Hotel, and a discipleship school. Our missional communities are called Response Groups, which are meant to be a microcosm of the church. They are small groups of believers in Jesus who respond to the Gospel by worshiping God, loving one another as family, and serving together on God’s mission in our city. The Hope House is a transitional living home for women. In it we regularly serve anywhere from 10-15 women per week by helping them find spiritual and emotional healing, and equipping them with the tools to become healthy contributors to society. Additionally, we regularly go to Hiland Prison in Eagle River in order to serve and care for the women. Some of our leaders voluntarily go out there throughout the week to provide them with encouragement, and we have a monthly commitment to hold a Sunday night worship service for them. Our discipleship school program has a holistic approach to developing followers of Jesus, which consists of theological training, spiritual formation, and ministry equipping.
Although we currently lease a space at 3300 Spenard, we unfortunately do not have a building of our own. We have been somewhat of nomads for the last few years, which has been exceptionally difficult lately because we do not have anywhere for children’s ministry. There are benefits to this of course, but there seems to be a ton more challenges. So, with a desire to more readily meet the needs of our growing church and be better positioned to serve our city, we have been prayerfully and actively looking for a space in Anchorage.
Since the beginning, God has made it clear that it is His will for His people to acquire land for the sake of His Kingdom (Gen. 12:1-3,7; 13:15; Ex. 33:1; Deut. 28:1-14; Ps. 105:9-12). God made very specific promises to give land to His people, and we believe this is one of the promises that becomes ours in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 3:21-23; 2 Cor. 1:20-22; Gal. 3:16). That is, when it comes to the blessings of God (Gen. 12:1-3), included is the promise that we in Christ will inherit land on this earth. To be clear, we believe that the ultimate land we will inherit is the new creation that Jesus will make when He comes again (Rev. 21-22). But, until then, we believe it is our promise and duty to acquire and redeem land in this world. The purpose for this, of course, is not for human carnal desires, but in order that the goodness of God would advance in the world. Specifically, we believe that God wants to give actual land to followers of Jesus in order to redeem it for His purposes on the earth. The question is not “if God has land for us”, but “what land does the Lord have for us to acquire for His purposes?” So, our leadership has been praying for many years “Lord Jesus, when and where is Response Church supposed to acquire land for Your Kingdom?”. We believe the time is now and the place is somewhere between midtown and downtown Anchorage. While we are actively searching for the right property and trust God to provide, we have a vision in mind of what we believe God wants us to do with it. The vision for this property is fourfold:
Our vision is not to simply create another church building in our city. Rather, our church desires to have a multifunctional property that would serve all people in our city. This building, of course, would function as our main gathering space for worship, community and equipping. The auditorium would function as our primary meeting room for our worship services, as well as community events — like hosting local artists.
Additionally, the property would have a community coffee house with class rooms and places for kids to play in adjoining areas. Our idea is to provide an enriching and life-giving environment for people from all walks of life to come and enjoy coffee, family, and friends. This would also potentially serve as an opportunity to provide employment for people in transition — coming out of homelessness or prison.
Furthermore, our church currently has a part time discipleship program called Anchorage Discipleship School, in which we have 30-students in active weekly attendance and discipleship. In the near future, it is our plan to have a full-fledged in-house discipleship school, so that people can attend a holistic 1-2 year discipleship program. This program is not a one-dimensional school of a weekly lecture. Rather, it will incorporate all the fundamental elements of apprenticeship to Jesus: class, worship, prayer, community, service, mission trips, and one-on-one accountability. With this in mind, the property would be designed with classrooms, a large meeting hall, and (at some point) a dormitory. We want to help people in transition by providing them with a healthy environment to live while they are learning how to holistically follow Jesus.
Last but not least, and truly at the heart of our vision, is to utilize this space for serving the poor of our city and state. When the apostle Paul went to Peter, James, and John to get their blessing on his ministry, the one thing they asked him to do was “remember the poor”. According to Paul, this is the one thing that he did (Gal. 2:9-10). God forbid that we have a property being used for God and not use it to serve the poor.
With this in mind, our property will be thoroughly dedicated to providing spiritual, emotional and mental healing for the poor, as well as practical help and training for them to be healthy contributors to society. This would practically look like using our facility to host recovery and rehab programs, provide scholarships for people to attend our in-house training school, actively partner with local nonprofits that serve the poor, provide a safe and healthy place in the heart of our city, and more. One example of this is a partnership that we just began with the Downtown Hope Center, which is doing an amazing work. We will collaborate with such organizations by coming alongside of the poor and giving them the support and tools that they need to live well. Additionally, part of our vision [as mentioned above] is to provide affordable, safe and secure housing for people in transition while they are attending our training school (or something similar). For this reason, we are looking for a property that has potential housing inside of it or nearby.
We are actively looking at properties in the midtown to downtown area that could potentially meet all of these needs. In addition to our eldership, we have an A+ team that consists of an architect, commercial general contractors, commercial property owners, on-the-ground servant leaders of the poor, and more. At the same time, we are asking for your partnership in this endeavor in three ways: pray, share and give.
We acknowledge that this is a God-sized vision, and we would not want it any other way. Therefore, we are first asking for your faithful and fervent prayers on our behalf. Please agree with us that God would grant us wisdom for where He would have us go and what He would have us do. Additionally, pray that God would provide the people and financial resources necessary to acquire a property and fully renovate it.
Second, we are asking that you would share this with anyone you think would be interested in partnering with us in this endeavor. Whether that’s asking them to pray, share, and/or give, please spread the word. Feel free to share on social media, text/email this page to a friend, or give our contact to those who may be interested.
Third, we are asking you to prayerfully consider giving to this vision. We currently estimate that we will need approximately $1.5 million to purchase and build-out a property as described above. Our timeframe for this campaign is December 1, 2021 through February 28, 2022. Please see the graph below showing what we have raised.
There are basically two ways you can give: one time and/or monthly donations. A one-time donation will go directly toward our building fund. The goal is to buy the property outright so as to reserve as much of our monthly budget as possible for ministry expenses (staff, facilities, etc). With this in mind, monthly donations will be significantly helpful for keeping and hiring the staff necessary to continue doing God’s work of prayer, equipping God’s people, and serving the church and the poor.
We have already had some very generous donations come forward before we have even officially asked, for which we are grateful! If you would like to financially contribute, you can either give online or by check. For online giving, go to our secure giving site, determine how much you want to give, how often, and which fund (Response Building). Checks can be made out to “Response Church” with the memo designated as “Building Fund” or “Capital Campaign” and mailed to P.O. Box 230852 Anchorage, AK 99523. As a nonprofit organization, your gift would be a tax-deductible donation.
Finally, if you are interested in partnering, know of someone who would, and/or simply want to know more about what we’re doing, feel free to contact our lead pastor Gabriel Webb at gabrielw@responsechurchak.org and he will contact you.
We thank you for taking the time to read about what we believe God has in store for our church and we will keep you posted on this page.