by Gregg DiCecca with Keith Bassham
The church used to be known in the area as Granite State Baptist Church, the “Granite State” part identifying with New Hampshire. But later when the church needed to push out to reach their community and others in New England, they decided to refer to themselves as Granite United with several congregations meeting on multiple campuses throughout the area.
Saying they will do whatever it takes, Granite United and Pastor Anthony Milas have planted four churches in nine years: Crossroads Baptist Church of Pelham, The Journey Baptist Church of Rochester, Dialogue Church of Manchester (all in New Hampshire), and New Heights Community Church of Haverhill, Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, as Granite invested into each church plant financially and through volunteers and leaders, Milas saw the mother church continue to grow. Trying to find a location to accommodate these new worshippers became more and more of a challenge. Additional Sunday services soon maxed out, but the vision of Granite United to reach New England had not changed. They decided they would no longer let their existing location determine the number of people they could reach for Christ and committed to becoming one church in multiple locations. A few months later, in February 2008, Granite United launched their second campus at a local movie theater.
Worshipping in two locations at the same time forced church leadership to focus on multiplying volunteer leaders at every level of the ministry, from worship teams, ushers, greeters, and campus pastors, but God blessed. In 2008, Granite United baptized over 50 believers and saw many others begin their journey with Christ.
A year and a half later, the two Granite United campuses were experiencing the crunch for seats. Granite United had recently held its Easter service at a local middle school that had over 1,000 seats, allowing both campuses and all service times to meet for one large combined service. Later, they asked what would happen if they combined the two campuses and left their existing permanent location to become a completely portable church? Three months later, in July of 2009, Granite United Church did launch its newly combined, portable location at the Tenney Grammar School in Methuen, Massachusetts.
That year, Granite had over 100 people follow Christ in baptism, and they had a record-shattering Easter service. Creating a portable weekend worship experience for over 500 people in one service, Granite saw its volunteer ranks soar to over 300 people plugged into regular service. But this location was not without its own unique challenges: limited onsite parking, scheduling conflicts with some sporting events, and a very small but vocal group of local politicians who were not excited to have a church meeting at the school.
That dissatisfaction led to an “exile” order, and Granite was forced to rethink their vision, and they had to do it within 30 days. Over the next four weeks, hundreds of volunteers reworked their former Salem location to prepare for the worshippers that would be filling the hallways in just a matter of days. A brand new Resource Room, a newly built Café, and an expanded auditorium stage began to take shape and through many late nights and early mornings the renovations were ready for the relaunch of the Salem campus on September 5.
Today, Granite has added two Sunday services and a completely new Saturday service with a second planned in the near future. When asked about the unplanned move, Pastor Milas replied that he “sees this as an opportunity to grow.” He is excited to be able to reach people never reached before by a Saturday service and thrilled that the Café, whose proceeds are “going to support Granite United’s feeding center in Korea run by BBFI missionary Brian Kim, are on target to send an additional $15,000 this year.” In addition to partnering with the BBFI in supporting Pastor Kim, Granite has been able to enlarge their network of influence. Pastor Milas says, “We are now in a network of 15 to 20 churches (the majority of which are younger church plants). This has allowed us to partner in men’s and women’s conferences with nationally recognized speakers, training conferences, mentoring opportunities, sharing of resources, and even the sharing of worship teams.”
Pastor Milas is also hoping the school board will realize that the church has a right to rent their facilities. He says, “We want to keep that door open for future church planters, and maybe go back for Christmas.”
Gregg DiCecca is the worship pastor of Granite United Church (Granite State Baptist Church).