Community Christian Launches Church in Downtown Lemont

The almost decade-old Shale Harbor Church located on Stephen Street in downtown Lemont will soon open its doors under a new name.

Community Christian Church, which began in Naperville and now has a dozen locations throughout the Chicago area, will launch its new Lemont campus in March.

Campus pastor Dave Richa will take the helm of the new location, and he and fellow church members are looking forward to “helping people find their way back to God.”

"We want to be invested in this community and to be a part of what God's doing here," Richa said. "We're excited about that."

Shale Harbor Church members hope the partnership will result in reaching a broader base of people.

Currently, Shale Harbor has multiple small church communities around the country. When Shale Harbor members felt the Lemont church wasn’t realizing its redemptive potential, they sought out the partnership with Community Christian, said Dave Ferguson, lead pastor of Community Christian Church.

“They felt if they joined forces with us, a larger church, we could be a resource for them,” he said.

There is still some work to be done to ready the former Shale Harbor building, once an old general store in historic downtown Lemont, for opening.

Church officials have also formed a launch team made up of people from Lemont’s Shale Harbor, as well as members from other Community Christian Church campuses.

Pastor Richa, along with his wife and three daughters, came from Colorado to help start the Lemont church. But Richa is no stranger to the area. A Schaumburg native, he worked at Community Christian Church's Naperville location for almost a decade before trekking to Colorado to launch a church there.

Launch team member Tina Caceres, head of Kids’ City programming at Community Christian’s Romeoville campus, will also help get the new location up and running.

“I knew Lemont existed but I didn’t know anything about it,” she said. “I’m excited about what we’re going to be doing and how we’re going to grow together. My whole family is on board.”

Despite Lemont already being home to a variety of church denominations —including Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist, among others — Richa said there is not a sense of competition. Instead, "there is a cooperation among the churches to work together," he said. "There really seems to be a sense of community here."

Those who attend Community Christian Church's Lemont campus can expect relevant and applicable messages, as well as upbeat music, a children's ministry and small groups for junior high students, Richa said.

"We're pretty casual, pretty laid-back," he added. "But we're passionate about following Jesus. If a person walks in here and has never read the Bible, they're not going to feel like they stand out like a sore thumb."

Church officials have set the launch date of Lemont Community Christian Church for Sunday, March 20. For more information about Community Christian, visit www.communitychristian.org.