One memorable and very pungent time in Avalon Church’s nine-year history were the years spent meeting in the Blanchard Park YMCA weightlifting room. Curtains, potted plants and a wildly creative imagination transformed the space into a sanctuary each Sunday.
But no matter the decor or healthy helping of positive attitudes, founding member Vic Reyes will never forget the smell of stale sweat that always lingered. Like many start-up churches in East Orlando, Avalon Church was transient, starting at the Radisson Hotel on Alafaya Trail and East Colonial Drive with a handful of people, moving to the original pastor’s living room when the group doubled and even tripled in size, and then off to several different schools and community locations from there.
It was not until last Sunday that the church celebrated its first permanent home in Avalon Park along Tanja King Boulevard. Brimming with more than 700 people, the location is everything a church should be, beamed Pastor Dale Brooks. “We purposefully made it look like a church — white with a tall steeple — so it would stand out in the community,” he said. “We want the community to know we are here and ready to help them in any way we can.”
The congregation grew from 100 to more than 500 members in the five years they called Timber Creek High School’s Performing Arts Center and cafeteria home. But Brooks said people in need of spiritual guidance or tangible assistance likely hesitated to come to the church in the past because of its lack of presence. “We hope it will give hope to people knowing there is a resource there that will help during the tough times. In this affluent area we worship in, people are hurting.
People have needs, they are depressed, they are hopeless,” he said. “When we were meeting at the school they did not know how to contact us if they needed us.” The church also plans to open its doors for organizations that need meeting space like scouting groups, the gardening club, the homeowners association and many others. “I think this is a community that is hungry for a church facility,” Brooks said.
“We live in a ZIP code with more than 50,000 people, 80 percent of whom identify themselves as Christian, but with only five Christian church facilities.” The need was reflected in the congregation’s dramatic growth of more than 200 additional members after the church’s soft opening three weeks ago.
The church’s capacity of 550 prompted an additional service on Sundays. Brooks is already anticipating the need for a third in the near future, after attendance rose to 977 at its grand opening last Sunday. “In a real sense we have already outgrown our building,” he said. Besides the benefits the facility offers the community, it has been a great relief to the congregation and especially those who were responsible for setting up the sanctuary at their previous meeting places.
John Molloy, who leads the set-up group, said they usually started setting up the TCHS stage for worship around 7 a.m. every Sunday and then spent several hours afterward to clean up and restore the space. “I went from having a facility and organized ministries to a body of Christ that was meeting in cafeterias and YMCA aerobics rooms,” Molloy said of transitioning from Orlando Baptist to Avalon Church eight years ago.
“It was like going from a large corporation to a start-up organization. It was different but exciting because you get to see something grow from its infancy to maturity.” Reyes too vividly remembers the hours it took each Sunday to make the space more conducive to worshiping. This means not only hours of hard work each week but also a need to be very creative. “It was something we will never see as a negative because it was a great time to bond together,” Molloy said.
At Timber Creek they were constantly working around things that were going on at the high school that could be a distraction to the members, like a half of a Volkswagon Beetle protruding from the wall for one of the high school plays.
“You get creative and hang drapes, put plants in front of it, or the pastor ties it into the service. One time the pastor climbed up onto a balcony they built for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and started the service from up there,” Reyes recalled. “Looking back on it, it was a lot of work from a lot of volunteers but at the same time it was very fulfilling and rewarding.”
Besides the physical work it took each Sunday to get their meeting places just right, not having a permanent home meant a lot of begging and borrowing. “Because we borrowed equipment like projectors and soundboards, that means it is not always in the best shape or not always available,” Reyes said.
“Things would break down at the wrong moments, which provided comical anecdotes later on.” In addition to convenience, the new facility allows the congregation to meet more often and offer more to its members.
Youth groups are no longer strewn about, meeting in several schools in the area, the homeless ministry will become more established, and AWANA (Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed) Ministry for children is growing exponentially. “Many people have expressed the fact that they were waiting for the building to come up to check us out.
They identify a
church not by the people but by a brick
and mortar building,” Reyes said.
“The opening was a wonderful beginning.
It is not the end of nine years of
hard work, it is the beginning of the
establishment of a church in the middle
of a community. There is a lot of work to
be done here.”
