Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremiah Curran.
Hi Jeremiah, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was a youth pastor in Maple Grove for nearly 6 years. While I was working there, we build our house out near St. Michael. Our mission was always to create a culture where we could invite people to experience the love of Jesus without losing their minds or their sense of humor. We wanted to be able to invite our friends who didn’t know God to come and experience a faith community where they could learn at their own pace and feel like they truly had a starting point – no matter what their previous experience with church had been or what lifestyle they were coming from.
In August of 2006, I resigned at the church in Maple Grove, and we invited a group of friends and interested people over to learn more about the heart of what would become Westbridge Church. Little did we know that all 12 adults at that first meeting would say YES to the invitation, and we held our first service in September of 2006!
Meeting once a month through 2006, we started meeting weekly in January of 2007. We launched in the movie theatre in St. Michael, running about 100 people a weekend through that first year.
By 2008, we added a second service, and began to run about 200 people a weekend. In the summer of 2008, we moved out of the St. Michael Cinema, and began renting Big Woods Elementary School. We grew to about 300 people a weekend.
In 2009, needing more space, we shifted to Middle School East, and were running about 400 a weekend, and began adding more staff.
In 2011, we moved to Middle School West – which had a 500 seat auditorium! This allowed us to do kids spaces in the gyms and cafeteria, as well as add middle school and high school programming on a weekly basis. We began to run about 500 people a weekend in 2011.
In 2012, we began to save up for a permanent facility of our own! We raised about $850,000 to try to purchase an existing building. However, there are really no large existing structures in St. Michael, and we had to look at land options. After 26 attempts at purchasing property, we were able to close on lucky number 27 in February of 2016.
By 2016, we were running about 600 people and raising more money so that we could build a permanent facility on the land we had purchased. We were able to begin construction in 2018, and move into our facility by the fall of 2019.
We hit 1,000 people on a weekend for the first time in the fall of 2019.
But in March of 2020, COVID hit, and we had to shut it all down! We quickly switched to online only for nearly 5 months, and slowly began adding services back into the building with a limited capacity by mid-summer.
By January of 2022, we were running about 800 again in person. In 2023, we grew 51% and another 15% in 2024. Today we are currently running nearly 1500 people a weekend, and we are raising money to double the size of our facility.
And yet, the mission has remained the same: People Helping People FIND & FOLLOW JESUS! Our goal is to always keep the main thing the main thing and never become sidetracked or drift off course from the original reason that we started Westbridge Church. As we remain consistent and faithful to do what God has called us to do, we continue to see new families coming to church and coming to faith as a result!
Our prayer is that we can complete construction on Phase 2 of our facility within the next 3 years, allowing us to double our capacity to communicate God’s love to the people of our community!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has NOT been a smooth road!
Raising money is one of the biggest challenges – especially for a new church. I worked a full-time job on the side for the first 2 years in order to get the church up and running.
We faced challenges from the School District when we were renting because of some of their restrictions.
We faced challenges from other churches who didn’t like our “style” of doing church.
We faced challenges from the city who didn’t want to see property that we would potentially purchase be taken off of the tax rolls, which caused their city council to vote against our purchase agreements on pieces of land.
Church constantly deal with staffing issues. It can be very difficult to find the right people to build the team that you need in order to sustain lasting growth as a church. We are always looking for qualified people to join our team.
And we are currently facing budget constraints to build Phase 2 because construction prices have skyrocketed in the last few years.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My main gifts and responsibilities are strategic leadership and communication.
I’ve always had an ability to see the big picture – to quickly and clearly connect the dots in an organization. When it comes to church, I have the ability to make strategic decisions today that will impact our church in the future, and then build teams and galvanize people to move in that direction.
As the primary communicator for the church, I rely on communication to not only lead our staff, but to communicate messages to our church family and their guests each weekend.
I was a youth pastor for nearly 10 years, and then we started Westbridge Church nearly 19 years ago. What sets our church apart is the unique blend of being really fun, lighthearted, and welcoming – without watering down our message. We are able to communicate deep and transformational truths in a way that is accessible for everyone!
What’s next?
We are currently deep into meetings with architects, builders, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, and technical engineers to build a Phase 2 on our permanent facility. Our current facility is about 20,000 sq ft, and we are looking to add an additional 20,000 sq ft on to our facility. This will allow us to double our capacity of seating, parking, and kids spaces on a weekly basis.
In the meantime, we are currently running 3 services every Sunday, and we will be launching a Thursday Night Service in a couple of weeks to try to open up more seats for those who want to become a part of Westbridge Church!
We are also investigating what it might look like to run an after school kid care program.
These are the things we’re currently working on for the future!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.westbridgechurch.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westbridgechurchmn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westbridgechurch
- Twitter: https://x.com/mywestbridge
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@westbridgechurchmn
