Church at Chelsea Westover opens new kids’ building

In the past, we’ve shared the story of the Church at Chelsea Westover, which was planted in 2012 at a ServPro headquarters in Shelby County.

In the 11 years since it began, it’s continued to grow, and in recent years, they built a gymnasium worship center. It’s been a big asset to their community ministry, but they knew they needed the next piece of the plan to be put in place soon — a new children’s building.

“The area that was upstairs and originally intended to be the audiovisual hub for services became the children’s space,” said Eli Alexander, the church’s children’s pastor.

“It worked, but it really wasn’t purpose-built, and it was really bursting at the seams for a minute.”

But on Aug. 27, the Church at Chelsea Westover celebrated the grand opening of its new children’s ministry building.

“It’s been a great change,” Alexander said.

The new building has a kids’ chapel and six classrooms that can be used for both Sunday School space and Mother’s Day Out.

Before, they hadn’t held children’s Sunday School for a while, only child care during the service.

“When I came here, we had at a max five kids in Sunday School between pre-K and grade school, and three all from one family,” Alexander said. “We cut that ministry just because it wasn’t bearing fruit at the time and was a large burden on volunteers.”

But now, it’s back, and by mid-September, they were running nearly 50 children and volunteers for Sunday School and even more during the worship hour.

“It’s been good to see the fruit of having that good space,” Alexander said.

Pastor Rick Wright said God is mightily working at the church and that it “has been a thrill to see our children’s ministry explode.” “We literally grew out of space and — praise the Lord — God has built us the new kids’ building, and it’s already been paid for. Pastor Eli and his team are doing an amazing job loving and leading CCW kids.”