Aug. 19--A prominent Wheaton church that has suffered a serious erosion in attendance over the past 15 to 20 years recently merged with a large Naperville church.
The move brought together the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church, 520 E. Roosevelt Road in Wheaton, with Compass Church, a megachurch that meets at two different locations in Naperville. In an interesting bit of history, Compass Church's forerunner, Naperville Evangelical Free Church, was created in 1957 as an offshoot of Wheaton Evangelical Free Church.
In the 1990s, the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church had almost 900 visitors each week, and in 1994, the church embarked on a massive expansion, spending millions of dollars to create a 922-person worship space.
Since that time, however, Wheaton Evangelical Free Church's attendance has slid precipitously, to a point where there are about 285 attendees each week. Although the church was not insolvent when it began exploring merger options, its leaders were "seeking a vision that was going to take them forward in the future," said Darcy Ruscitti, Compass Church's executive director for ministries.
"I think the Wheaton elders deserve a big kudos, because they were looking at what they should do before it was a case where they had no choice but to close their doors," she said.
For the Wheaton church, the likeliest option for its future was to pair up with another congregation. The first merger the Wheaton church explored was with the Orchard Evangelical Free Church of Arlington Heights. However, that pairing fell through after Orchard leaders were not in favor of bringing elders from the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church onto the combined elder board at Orchard.
Last year, the Wheaton church and Compass Church began discussing a potential merger. Several aspects of a merger made sense, including the fact that both were part of the same denomination.
Eventually, the two churches decided to launch a trial run of combined operations at the start of 2015, with Compass' head pastor, Jeff Griffin, preaching on Sunday mornings both at Compass' main location in Naperville and also at the Wheaton building.
"We're different operationally. (Wheaton Evangelical Free Church was) a small church and we're a megachurch," Ruscitti said. "So during the period at the start of the year, it was a lot of 'How do you handle this?' It also was a getting-to-know-you period."
After several months, the two congregations took a further step, both voting to merge. The Wheaton church is now known as the Compass Church--Wheaton campus.
About 2,500 people meet each week at Compass Church's main location, 1551 Hobson Road in Naperville, and then another 500 or so gather at Compass' location in the building at 2244 W. 95th Street in Naperville, Ruscitti said. In addition to Griffin, the outlying locations have "campus pastors," who work to build community at given locations, Ruscitti said.
"The campus pastors are the 'boots on the ground' pastors," Ruscitti said.
As part of the merged entity, Compass leaders are encouraging the roughly 160 existing people who live north of Interstate Highway 88 and attend services at Compass' Naperville locations to consider going to the Wheaton location, Ruscitti said.
"We're reaching out and saying, 'Here's what it looks like, all these pieces, and consider making (the Wheaton location) your home,'" she said.
The three ethnic congregations that have met at the Wheaton location -- Sudanese Community Church, Immanuel Myanmar Church and Tenesae Church -- will continue to hold their own services there.
Rick Pierson, the Wheaton location's campus pastor, is working with those congregations "on how to be part of the church and not just lease space," Ruscitti said.
One aspect of the Wheaton church that no longer exists is its longtime preschool, Sunshine Preschool, which closed in May after 44 years of operation. The preschool was shuttered after it suffered from declining enrollment and the unexpected death in November of its longtime director, Anne Marie Brinley, who was 58.
Beginning Sept. 13, Compass' main Naperville location and the Wheaton location will begin coordinating their service times so that Griffin can preach twice on Sunday mornings at both locations.
While church mergers are not common, they're also not unheard of. Earlier this year, two small churches in Villa Park, Parkwood Community Church and the Evangelical Covenant Church of Villa Park, joined forces to become Christ Covenant Church.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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