Missions

Immanuel, Downers Grove seeks to reach all with new worship service

It wasn't that Sharon Rozkowski was against God, she just didn't like going to church.  “I never really could get into the services. I prefer a smaller, more personal worship . . . not so structured, that's what I didn't like about my church.”

Sanctuary1010 was designed with Sharon in mind. And Immanuel Lutheran in Downers Grove hopes that a lot more people like Sharon will have the opportunity to hear about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Six years ago, the church's elders dreamed of a day when they would be able to offer worship services to everyone in their community. The three traditional worship services effectively reached the churched and the de-churched who desired to connect with the traditions of their youth. The contemporary service effectively reached churched baby boomers and the de-churched who were still favorably disposed to church.

But they recognized that there was still a group of people who were not being reached:  the de-churched who don't like church and the un-churched who've never been to church, many of whom are Generation-X or postmoderns. They are the easiest to forget, the hardest to reach, and the kind of lost sheep that Jesus would run after.

Thus began a six-year process of partnerships in ministry. We partnered with Rev. Jock Ficken of St. Paul, Aurora to learn about his two-campus ministry.* We partnered with the Center for U.S. Missions to learn about how to plant a “daughter church”. We partnered with Lutheran Church Extension Fund for a demographic study of our target ministry area in Woodridge. We partnered with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans who caught our vision of reaching the next generation and generously supported this new ministry with a grant through the Northern Illinois District Mission & Ministry Board and the LCMS North American Mission Department.

But most importantly, we partnered with men and women of God who caught the vision of creating an environment for people to worship the Triune God in spirit and in truth.

Are we willing to give up things we like in worship for the sake of the lost? If we strip away the pews and the stained glass, the organ and the vaulted ceilings, cross-impressed wafers and stolls, can we still share the love of God? 

Sharon says yes. “I always feel like when I leave there, I always get something out of it. I've never been a regular church-goer, I was just going through the motions. But at Sanctuary1010, I always leave with something . . .  I've gone to different churches throughout my life, Catholic, Lutheran, we even tried a Buddhist temple, and nothing has really grabbed us like Sanctuary has, it was perfect for what we were looking for.”

The next generation is presenting God's church a huge spiritual opportunity. While on the one hand, they hold all spiritualities on an even playing field, on the other, they are very open to the Christian faith. So instead of forcing them to travel to a foreign land to converse in a language they don't understand, why not just meet them where they're at?

That was Jesus' pattern of ministry. He incarnated himself to meet us: to walk with us, to talk in a language we would understand, and even to tolerate our imperfections until the time he would make all things perfect through himself. Sanctuary1010 was born for that very purpose. And we like the early church continue to pray that the Lord would add daily to our numbers those who are being saved.

* St Paul, Aurora had a two campus ministry from 1989-2005. They sold the historic Benton campus to San Pablo Lutheran Church in the fall of 2005.