Riverstone to become Southridge Church
The Southridge Community Church has a new home on River Road in Welland.
The church’s new location was, until recently, The Riverstone Event Centre. The church purchased the building from previous owner, John Clark, and has now begun renovations to turn it into a facility it can call home.
Southridge has locations in St. Catharines and Vineland in addition to Welland.
Pastor Mike Meinema said for the past eight years the church has been in Welland it has been a “portable church.”
For a period of time, it rented out space at Welland Centennial Secondary School before renting space at the Welland Health and Wellness Complex. But now it will have a space of its own.
“We felt the need for a permanent place to have a church that can have an impact in the community all week long,” he said.
Meinema said out of respect for Clark he wasn’t going to say how much the church purchased the building and property for. He did say, however, Clark and his wife were wonderful to work with through the sales process and even paid for having the sign changed out front.
The deal was finalized this month and the sign was changed on Monday.
The Mennonite brethren denominational church has 150 adult and 100 child attendees, he said. With this new space, there is even more potential for the already growing church to grow even more.
Meinema said there are some pretty big dreams brewing for the church, such as being able to use the existing kitchen for cooking classes for people in need, on- site resources for single parents and using the space as kind of a community centre when it’s not being used for services.
He said the location is great since the church has already had connections with downtown resources such as Rose City Kids. He said it’s also a good spot for churchgoers who come in from the Pelham area.
“It’s come together almost miraculously,” he said.
In a post to the Southridge Community Church website, Meinema wrote about how he came across the location. He had been keeping an eye out for properties that could be used as a new location for the church.
Meinema said he hopes to have a service at the new location on Dec. 17 and one for Christmas the following week. The church will continue to rent the space at the Wellness Complex until the end of the year in case things don’t run as smoothly as they would hope, but the plan is to turn Riverstone into Southridge within just a few weeks.
Many volunteers have stepped up to help make the transformation happen, he said. Parishioners are lending their time and services to the church, including for the construction work.
He said Southridge is his first church as a pastor, having been in the position for about a year, and he’s excited for the future.