On the back cover of Rick Rusaw’s book “The Externally Focused Church,” a sentence in bold type asks: “How Can Your Church Get the Attention of Your Community?”
His own church, LifeBridge Christian, has gotten the attention of just about everybody in its hometown of Longmont, although not in the ways Rusaw and his co-author had in mind.
LifeBridge’s proposal to build a high-end residential and retail community – on land the city was eyeing for open space – has upended Longmont’s leadership and spawned a vote to halt the development’s annexation.
In the process, the project has ignited a fight that has strayed well beyond the usual not-in-my-backyard angst into the uneasy territory of religious beliefs and beliefs about religion.
While opponents’ arguments evoke images of Branch Davidian- like compounds and unholy tax evasion, LifeBridge leaders say their Union development isn’t about creating a tax-free enclave. It is, they say, about fundraising.
The plan: Find builders for the 300-plus-acre project, sell the land, and use the money for a new LifeBridge campus.
LifeBridge leaders are moving their congregation into an emerging post-bake-sale world of church finances.
It’s a world more churches may begin exploring as they discover that selling Christmas wreaths and holding pledge drives no longer pay the bills – and certainly won’t cover construction of new buildings. But for some, the idea that a church simply wants to make money may be the most troubling notion of all.
“Whoever heard of a church building a subdivision?” asked one respondent to the Longmont Daily Times- Call newspaper’s online poll on the topic.
“There’s always the impression that we’re going to be dumb” when it comes to financial assets, said Rusaw, LifeBridge’s senior minister.
Rusaw is not dumb.
He has a portfolio of real estate and business investments and enough financial acumen that he is a sought-after preacher not only of the Gospel, but of a gospel that good works and good fiscal work aren’t mutually exclusive.
But rightly or wrongly, “there is a large percentage of people who feel very uncomfortable about that,” said Rodney Pitzer, research director for MinistryWatch, which promotes financial transparency among churches.
“It raises a lot of issues,” Pitzer said. “One would be the allocation of resources – how much time and money is being put into that (business venture) instead of the mission?”
Those are valid concerns, Rusaw said. “That’s why we created 4C, so we wouldn’t lose focus on the mission.”
This 4C is the Corporation for Community Christian Connection, the nonprofit corporation LifeBridge created to oversee the development.
A simple decision …
What has erupted into a citywide brouhaha started simply enough: About six years ago, church leaders decided the congregation had outgrown its home.
After that, things started getting complicated.
As it stands now, Longmont voters will have the final say Jan. 29 on LifeBridge’s request for the city to annex the project site, now in unincorporated Weld County.
The project has already won Weld County commissioners’ approval, so it can and probably will go ahead regardless of the vote, said Martin Dickey, chief operating officer of 4C. It’s just a matter of whether it will be part of Longmont.
What some opponents of the development see as the church’s cozy relationship with movers and shakers attracted the attention of Colorado Ethics Watch, which spent weeks combing documents and e-mails.
They found no impropriety, said director Chantell Taylor.
“What it came down to was, yes, they followed proper protocol, but it wasn’t a decision that looked to be in the best interest of Longmont residents,” Taylor said.
“They took the word of 4C and LifeBridge as gold, and they really relied on blind faith in agreeing to annex,” she said.
“Blind faith” in a development proposal lacking in specifics is one of the main reasons Jen Gartner says she undertook what became the petition drive to let voters decide the annexation question.
“I’m not sure if they’re putting more trust in this developer because it’s religious-based, but to me, they are still a developer,” Gartner said.
City officials, for their part, maintain Union is one of the most highly scrutinized developments in Longmont history.
LifeBridge and 4C do have plenty of influential advisers.
Dickey said a “half a dozen business-focused people” serve on the 4C board, although he declined to give their names.
When LifeBridge took its project to Weld County commissioners for approval, one, Glen Vaad, had to recuse himself because he is a longtime church member.
John Gaddis, the Longmont native whose law firm is the registered agent for 4C, served nine years on the city’s planning commission.
And Rusaw is a partner in limited liability corporations across five states.
Five of those, called Tiznow Ventures, are private partnerships that Rusaw said he entered into long before he came to Longmont.
Working with a firm called Res-Care, his ventures, he said, provide services to developmentally disabled adults. Those are individual investments, Rusaw said, and not connected to LifeBridge.
Ozark project led to outcry
Another of his investments, Folsom Ridge LLC, is building homes on an island in Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks.
That enterprise has given Rusaw experience not only in birthing a subdivision but also in dealing with restive neighbors.
The project ran into trouble when the developer installed the sewer line in the same trench as the water line, said Kevin Mohammadi, enforcement chief for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ water-pollution control.
That violates a Missouri law designed to protect drinking water, Mohammadi said.
The state issued fines and “the issue has been resolved,” he said.
Not as far as homeowners are concerned.
A tangle of suits and countersuits arising from the development await hearing in Missouri and federal courts. At issue primarily is where rights and responsibilities for the development and its utilities will lie.
Rusaw came to Longmont in 1991, after serving as a vice president of Cincinnati Christian University.
At the time, First Christian Church, as it was called then, had about 700 members. Since then the church has changed its name and grown to the point that a sheriff’s deputy is on hand most weeks to keep traffic from snarling as members pour onto Colorado 66 after Sunday services.
On a recent bright autumn Sunday, an information booth in the church lobby offered brochures inviting members to join groups for women and seniors, addiction-recovery groups, sports leagues and Bible studies.
A few early arrivals wandered over to the church’s bookstore to browse the selection of Bibles, pumpkin- shaped candles, Starbucks coffee and copies of Rusaw’s most recent book, “Living a Life on Loan.”
Within the worship “auditorium,” a band warmed up the hundreds of faithful already inside, on their feet, clapping and swaying and singing along to pop-style lyrics illuminated on the wall behind the musicians.
LifeBridge describes itself as “a nondenominational Christian church whose mission is to Lead people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Even opponents of the project concede the church deserves praise for its contribution to the community.
Rusaw estimates the church works with 50 nonprofits – food banks, youth programs and Longmont’s Inn Between, which provides temporary housing for families on the edge of homelessness.
When LifeBridge members show up to mentor kids or clean apartments, they don’t wear T-shirts that advertise their church affiliation, he said.
“Those volunteers are not LifeBridge volunteers, they are Inn Between volunteers,” Rusaw said. “We’ve always tried to take the approach of, ‘Let’s just serve without strings attached.”‘
“We’ve had plenty of chances to be high-profile. But that’s just not who we are.”
That approach may have contributed to a widely held perception in Longmont that the church is shrouding its Union plans in secrecy.
“We were trying to be low-key and unfortunately got behind in the message,” Rusaw said.
Longmont’s offer lost out
The farmland east of Union Reservoir that LifeBridge elders now own is the same land the city was negotiating to buy and preserve.
Opponents of the development say the city lost out because of eleventh- hour maneuvering by church elders.
That’s just another unfounded story, Dickey said.
“The owner of the land called people within the church and told them they wanted to sell and was the church interested,” C4 official Dickey said.
The city was negotiating a deal, but LifeBridge pre-empted it simply by making a better offer, he said.
The plan by 4C is to build just fewer than 200 homes on the property, along with a 150,000-square-foot sports arena. The corporation has contracted with a California company, Continuum Clubs, to build the arena.
According to the website , “the heart of the Union community will be Union Crossing, a mixed-use retail village.”
Whether and how much of this will be taxed has been one of the central rallying points for project opponents.
Dickey, however, said there is little question that much of Union will be taxed.
“This church has not had a history of looking to avoid paying taxes,” he said, noting LifeBridge’s bookstore already pays retail and income taxes.
Besides, Dickey said, 4C and LifeBridge have no intention of being landlords or builders.
Once retail and residential builders are on board, 4C will sell its interest in Union.
But others say it isn’t clear just what the law will require.
“I wish our staff had consulted with a tax attorney” and gotten specifics in writing, said Councilwoman Karen Benker, who cast the lone dissenting vote when the council agreed to annex the project.
Churches’ dabbling in real estate or other commercial enterprise is still unusual, Pitzer said. But he doesn’t expect that to be the case for long.
“Unfortunately,” he said.
For his part, Rusaw thinks what LifeBridge is doing really isn’t all that new.
“Churches have always been involved in doing good things,” he said. “It takes resources to make that happen.”
And that, he said, is the topic for his next book, a sequel to his “Living a Life on Loan.” The working title: “Business on Loan.”
Librarian Barbara Hudson contributed to this report. Karen Augé: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
“Churches have always been involved in doing good things. It takes resources to make that happen.”
Rick Rusaw, LifeBridge pastor
