02/28/2020
Last May, RESTōR Church Pastor, Gene Troyer received an unexpected Facebook message. The note informed the pastor that Faith Lutheran Church was vacating its facilities at the corner of Fifth and Madison streets.
“I went to look at it the next day,” Troyer said.
Now, RESTōR, which officially launched in January 2018 at The Goshen Theater, has a new home in Goshen's Historic Southside Neighborhood.
“We have had such a great relationship with the Downtown Goshen and with the theater board,” Troyer said. “We did not have big plans to look for a property ... But we ended up with this potential right close to downtown. That’s where we wanted to be. It’s been a really good fit.”
Troyer also noted that RESTōR has a primary demographic of 25- to 40-year-olds. That’s somewhat unusual in the church world, in which the age demographic tends to tilt older.
“The result of that is we have lots of kids, and we’ve run out of space for children at the theater because we do simultaneous kids’ service with adult service,” he said. “We need space.”
Enter the Faith Lutheran property at an ideal time. Troyer terms it, “Tremendous ... We have so much room to grow here.”
Troyer also said the Faith Lutheran Church of Goshen community was phenomenal in its ability to maintain the building for so many years, and maintain it well.
“We’re doing a lot of cosmetic updates,” Troyer shared. “It’s super exciting to be in this neighborhood,” Troyer said. “We can’t wait to connect.”
