by Journalism students Addison K. and Jasmine T.
On Sunday, January 12, New Life Church voted an approval to buy 30 acres of land west of the property for the biggest expansion to the church and Academy since its start nearly fifty years ago. The purchase price of $6.5 million includes a new access point to the property and updated utilities for the new site.
New Life has plans to expand their additional building and provide other new amenities for the community on both their existing land and the 30 acres of land they are purchasing.
The Bailey family owns 330 acres of land adjacent to New Life. New Life Church and Academy leadership have been negotiating the land purchase with the Bailey family and the city of Woodbury for 38 months. Now that the purchase agreement is set, it’s time to put plans forward to build a bigger and better space that can impact generations.
New Life’s 20-year plan includes large expansions to the existing New Life building, a larger worship center, new fine arts facilities, many new outdoor sports fields, an additional gym, a relocated playground, a field house, and additional parking spaces. It also includes margin for future ideas.
Pastor Lilly said, “Our desire is to enhance the ministry and the three areas that we focus on: teach, care, send.” He explained, saying, “We want to not only do a better job, but also continue to enhance the ways that we are teaching people the word of God. Ways that we can do this is by adding other facilities that continue teaching our community how to use their gifts that God has given them.”
Pastor Lilly added, “We ask ourselves how we can teach students well, how can we enhance the ways we care for people, and how we can make sure that what we are doing is sending people out into the world to change it in the name of Jesus. When we begin to answer these questions, then we have an idea of what needs to be added.”
“It’s like a Lego block,” Lilly says. “We want to put pieces on that continue to enhance what we currently have.”
New Life has been looking for land purchase opportunities for over twenty years but focused on the Bailey land in November of 2021. Todd George, a local project manager and New Life Church chair elder has been the main spokesperson for New Life during the negotiation process. He was asked by the elders and governing council committee to take on this role. He said, “The current process of buying the Bailey land started three years ago. We had fact-finding and exploratory pursuits prior to that, beginning in 2018, when we began to develop a campus master plan.”
The Bailey land is not the only land that New Life has looked into purchasing. Todd George said, “For purposes of due diligence, we’ve looked at several different sites in the in the East metro.”
Todd George continued, saying, “So, we’ve looked at both existing buildings that might have some translation for what New Life does across all of its ministry, church, academy, everything, and also ways that we can further use the 40 acres we currently own.”
Pastor Lilly said, “When we first met to assess our needs, there was a lot of dreaming, saying ‘What if we ran out of space in the worship center, what if we need a performing arts facility, what if our sports programs were bursting?’ These big ‘if’ conversations have become ‘is’ conversations. The Worship Center is getting too small, performing arts programs are amazing, sports facilities are running out.”
He continued, saying, “After we purchase the land, our focus will be raising funds, working alongside the capital campaign committee to expand and support these successful programs.”
The most immediate projects will be expanding the school, adding on to the Worship Center, enhancing fine arts facilities, and providing additional athletics facilities. These new enhancements will help meet the current needs of the community.
Pastor Lilly explained that once New Life has raised funds to fill current needs of the community, then they will focus on ideas that can allow New Life to further their goal of “Teach, care, send.” One potential example for growth is a fieldhouse to allow for year-round sports programs.
Pastor Lilly said, “We want to expand onto our already thriving programs. We are looking at services that people are paying for someplace else, such as club volleyball, soccer, and basketball. We want to use our already amazing programs to create club sports teams that both the New Life community and the Woodbury community can use.”
Pastor Lilly explained that implementing club sports teams provides great opportunities to reach people for Christ and allow more people to get involved with New Life in different ways. It also will provide New Life with a unique business model to financially support itself and provide support for additional New Life ministry paths.
When hearing about all the things that New Life is wanting to do, many members of the community question how it will be funded. New Life and the Bailey’s have agreed on a $6.5-million-dollar price point for the purchase of this land.
Pastor Lilly said, “Over the last number of years, God has blessed us through a number of different resources, one being fiscal responsibility. We’ve been very financially wise with what God has given us. We’ve stewarded it well, we’ve invested it. We’ve refinanced at low interest rates, and we’ve used the resources that God has given us well to set ourselves up to where we’ll be able to fund the initial investment down payment and purchase of the land. And then we’ll be relying largely on generosity for individuals to help that next step. People that are passionate about our mission, that are excited about being part of the new.”
It is important to note that tuition money will not be used towards any of the growth projects and purchases. All future investments and projects will be done with funds raised by the Capital Campaign Committee.
Larry Chinn is one of the leaders in the Capital Campaign Committee, which works to create plans to raise money for this upcoming expansion. Chinn said, “The Committee will start planning some community activities and events, and then we will conduct a feasibility study. A feasibility study is a three-month study that helps us see how excited key supporters are, and how much they would be willing to support the project financially.” He continued, saying, “We will find if people are more excited about classrooms, athletic fields, or fine arts, and then we will make a decision about how much money we will try to raise.”
The process of buying land from the Baileys has been very lengthy. Todd George said, “Newport, Woodbury, and Maplewood all have a portion of the land that’s being sold within their townships, and Washington and Ramsey County are also within that space. So, there are two counties, three cities, and they all have different regulations and requirements for the 330 acres that are being sold, even though New Life is only trying to buy 30 acres.”
Eric Searles said, “I would say a project of this size, the Bailey holdings, it’s not unusual for it to take a significant amount of time for those first projects to begin. Although it has taken a long time, I would say that all the cities involved have done a great job of having necessary, productive conversations. Projects this large take time.”
Although it has been a long process, New Life is confident that God is working through the whole process of purchasing land. Todd George said, “We firmly believe that there’ll be things that God gives us opportunity for with this not because of this, but as we trust him, God will do things that we can’t even envision yet. When we look back, we will be able to see God’s hand in this whole process.”
He continued, saying, “I must remind myself that it’s not up to me, it’s not up to us. I’m being asked to help and support and serve, but ultimately, it’s up to the Lord.”
Pastor Lilly said, “We are doing this because the world needs Jesus, our desire for 50 years here has been to teach people the word of God so they can go out and do something with it. Our desire is not just to get bigger, our desire is to have more impact, greater impact that truly will change the world. We know that the only thing that can really create change is Jesus, through us. Over 1800 students have graduated from New Life and have gone on to do great things. We want to allow that to continue to happen.”