Part three of three parts

BROADVIEW HTS. – More than 20 years ago, Slavic Full Gospel Church (SFGC) purchased a small facility on Wallings Road. After a year of renovations, the church’s members began worshipping there in 2003.

As the church’s membership grew, the building became less and less able to meet the full needs of SFCG’s members. Steady growth turned into a torrent of new members in 2022, coinciding with Russia’s wanton and brutal invasion of Ukraine. Many of the church’s members were born in Ukraine or come from Ukrainian descent.

“We are humbled by what the Lord is doing at SFGC,” says Peter Trokhimenko, pastor of the church. “The great growth we have experienced over the past couple of years leads us to believe that God has even greater plans for our church.”

To meet those needs, SFGC announced in the summer of 2023 that it is embarking on a major building and expansion project. When complete, the current 6,000 square-foot building will grow seven fold, to a two-floor facility with about 23,000 square feet of space on each floor. Highlights of the expansion will include:

• A new worship sanctuary, seating about 650 people
• A large fellowship hall
• Ten new Sunday School classrooms
• Offices, a nursery, and youth prayer room areas
• A courtyard and other gathering areas

To accomplish this, SFGC will tear down some homes it owns adjacent to its property and use that land for the expansion. It will also create one-way vehicular entrances and exits to the church off Wallings Road, which should serve to help alleviate traffic on the busy road.

“We strive to be salt and light (Matt 5:13-16) in the community in which we live,” says Roman Skalsky, a deacon at SFGC.  “We were at about our sanctuary’s capacity, and our Sunday School classroom space was very tight, and then – then the war started – our attendance really grew larger.”

Today the church has 350 members, and Slavic Full Gospel continues to grow. “We added 12 new church members just a few weeks ago,” Skalsky adds. About 650 people go through the doors every week. 

Pastor Trokhimenko adds that SFGC is both a cross-generational and burden-sharing in its nature. “One of our greatest strengths is our focus on community, hospitality, and relationship-building,” he explains. “SFGC is a place of fellowship, a place where people can share their joys, and help carry each others’ concerns as well.”

Today SFGC has two Sunday worship services, a Ukrainian language one at 9:30 a.m., and an English service at 11:30 a.m. “The transition time between our services is 30 minutes or less, which – coupled with a small lobby and foyer area – creates a challenge for those worshipping who want to spend time connecting with others between services,” Trokhimenko adds. “Our expansion will allows us to build a larger lobby/foyer and create a lot of comfortable common space for people to connect.”

The new Sunday School classrooms are also an important part of the expansion. “Right now our space for Children’s ministry is being utilized beyond its designed purpose,” says Trokhimenko. “More space for our children will give us more opportunities to teach and impress the Gospel on them. Our vision for SFGC is to be a family, a place of love and compassion, and where we care for each other. We’ve simply outgrown our current building.”

SFGC has determined that the building expansion will cost about $7 million. About $2.5 million of that has been pledges, and the church has saved more than $200,000 just for the expansion. So, it will be planning and carrying out additional fund-raising activities in the coming months. At the same time, the church continues to take a weekly offering for Ukrainian relief and to help war refugees. Soon the church will send its 29th and 30th of 40-foot shipping containers filled with relief supplies via truck and over-ocean cargo transport to Ukraine.

Below are pledge forms. Those interested in supporting Slavic Full Gospel’s building campaign can make pledges by completing the forms, or by going to this website: https://sfgchurch.churchcenter.com/giving