An Unexpected Home

Florida Congregation Finds a Home in a Bowling Alley

In 1996, Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church was a struggling congregation of only 40 to 50 members in Orlando, Florida, with no church building of its own. But Orlando, where Spirit of Joy (then called “Living Word”) was located, had begun growing by leaps and bounds, so the Rev. Jeff Linman was called to help revitalize the congregation. After knocking on countless doors, the congregation celebrated Easter 1997 in a tent with 165 people attending.

But real estate prices in Orlando were skyrocketing. The congregation–which was worshiping in schools, setting up and tearing down its makeshift sanctuary each week–spent years searching for a space of its own in a tough real estate market, during a period Pastor Linman refers to as its “wilderness years.”

Finally, after seven years of searching and 53 site visits, Spirit of Joy learned of a 30-lane bowling alley for sale. With the help of a loan from the Mission Investment Fund, which had been the congregation’s partner from the beginning, Spirit of Joy purchased the facility in 2004 and began renovating its 34,000 square-foot interior. With much sweat equity, the congregation transformed the building, turning the bowling alley’s lobby into a narthex, its bar into a youth room, its snack bar into a church bookstore and cafe, and its former video arcade into the church nursery.

“God doesn't give you what you need till you’re ready for it,” Pastor Linman says.

Since moving in late in 2005, Spirit of Joy’s weekly worship has grown to 250 people per Sunday and the congregation–whose weekly worship is making inspired use of its one-of-a-kind space.

The congregation also opens its facilities for use by Project Homeless Connect offers adult literacy tutoring, feeds up to 300 needy families at holiday times, hosts homeless families overnight through the Interfaith Hospitality Network, and has helped to create a “no school left behind” program to pair congregations with schools in need of help and supplies. Spirit of Joy also partners with a Lutheran church in genocide-ravaged Burundi, Africa, where its members have been on three home-building missions to date. The congregation is also using some of its still unrenovated space to run a bike ministry where homeless volunteers repair abandoned bicycles, receiving bikes of their own to keep as payment and use as basic transportation.

When it comes to investing its financial resources, Spirit of Joy chooses to work with the same ELCA ministry that helped it realize its dreams: the Mission Investment Fund. “Where else can you invest where the payoff benefits you and makes possible what God’s done here?” Pastor Linman asks. “When you invest with the MIF, the blessings you receive are multiplied.”