The rural township of Naracoorte in South Australia is about 330 kilometers out of Adelaide. It has around 8900 people in residence and is home to a church who purchased an old nightclub building and is possibly the only church in Australia who owns a service station lease!
Tracy Pearce is the Senior Pastor & founder of Max Life Church that was planted in 2008 out of a youth group that kept growing. “Then we had parents and adults getting saved at youth services and needing teaching, so we quickly realized that it was time to do something different,” said Tracy.
So from there, Max Life Church was planted with 12 people. After a few years of meeting in a local school hall with the extra stress of setup and pack-up two times a week, the church was able to move to right into the center of town, where they rented and renovated a garage into an auditorium.
“We developed a heart for people that had never been to church before or might even feel threatened by a more traditional church style, and we continued to grow,” she said.
The young adults that were part of the church in the beginning began to have kids, and the need for more space quickly arose. An opportunity to purchase the old nightclub next door to the rented auditorium came up, and they quickly got in touch with Baptist Financial Services to see what was possible.
“I loved that the first question they asked us was about the vision of our church, why we exist, and our dreams for the future,” said Tracy. “They understood that this was much more than just a financial transaction,” she said.
The church community of 60 adults took up a love offering that received $120,000 – exactly what they needed for the deposit on the loan, and the sale was secured.
“A building is important. We know the building isn’t the church; that’s the people of God, but it is certainly our home and it’s a home for what God is doing in people’s lives. The facilities become a space for God’s work, and that multipurpose center is now being used by members of our community who access different programs throughout the week,” said Tracey.
Fast forward to 2021, and an opportunity came up for Max Life Church to purchase the auditorium they had been renting. At the same time, the church had been gifted another property and were able to sell it to secure a chunk of the purchase. BFS was called in to do the valuation and secure the other portion with a loan.
“The miracle here is that the purchase included a petrol station lease, so we now own a servo, and it is bringing in rental income that’s actually paying our principal and our interest on our loan.”
“We‘re called Max Life Church out of the John 10:10 passage where Jesus has come that we may all have a life to the full. This is what I see as a thriving ministry. It‘s a church that‘s full of life, and out of that life, there are always new people coming to faith and people growing in their lives and faith journey,” said Tracy.
Without the stress of finding money for mortgage payments, the church can now focus on the main thing. “We‘re really focusing on discipling and growing people now, more than growing our facilities. And that‘s where I see it into the future. We have a lot of new Christians who are hungry to grow, so that‘s our focus,” she said.