Coastal Christian plans expansion, move to Somers Point

Pastor envisions church inside community center, anchored by destination hotel

By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff

OCEAN CITY – Coastal Christian in Ocean City has spent its 17-year existence outgrowing meeting spaces on the island. From its humble beginnings in a coffee shop on Asbury Avenue to a former church a few blocks away and then across the street to a converted gym, Coastal Christian has steadily moved and grown in Ocean City.

It is time for it to move again and expand in both mission and location.

This time Coastal Christian is planning to head across the Route 52 causeway to Somers Point by the end of 2022, not just to a new church, but a whole new concept.

Or, as Pastor Matt Stokes puts it, a “A Whole ’Nother Level.”

Stokes said this move – still in the planning and praying stages – is a new vision that goes way beyond a traditional church. Coastal Christian plans to build on the vacant lot on the northern side of MacArthur Boulevard between Shore Road and Route 9, but it’s not just constructing a church.

The new concept is a church inside a community center attached to a destination hotel … while keeping the property on the tax rolls.

Stokes said he first had a vision of putting a church inside a community center. The church vision statement is “calling a community to connect with Christ.” Trying to make more connections, he thought that instead of a church sitting empty most of the week except for Sunday services and midweek Bible study, why not create a community center that can be used all week long for a wide range of activities from day care to yoga classes? 

“And by the way, church happens to meet here Sunday as well,” he said.

A friend consulting on the project to find a new location for the church and raise funds had a better idea.

“How about we take it to a whole ’nother level,” his friend said. “How about we build a hotel? And in the hotel we put the community center and in the community center we put the church?”

“I was like, ‘That’s genius,’” Stokes said. That’s when he found out the consultant Coastal hired is the godfather of the concept and had built a project like that in Portland, Ore.

“We didn’t realize the guy we were hiring was the guy who had the very vision we thought we were coming up with and took it to a whole ’nother level.”

That became the name of the campaign.

 The campaign is for “anyone who wants to embrace the idea of a church that doesn’t operate only on Sunday morning, but operates 24/7 365 days a year. And the revenue from the hotel pays the mortgage for the entire complex,” Stokes said.

As he is being interviewed, Stokes’ mind whirs and he riffs on just a few of the ideas that can come into play in the project, from a sports complex outside that will be perfect for three-on-three basketball and soccer tournaments during which “we share the message of God’s love and forgiveness” at halftime. Inside, a place for inexpensive child care, a Christian school, plays and recitals. A three-story, 99-room hotel that is a resort destination, but affordable, maybe with a rooftop deck where wedding receptions could be held and from which people could see the bay and ocean. All just 10 seconds’ drive from the end of the bridge to Ocean City.

“We want to make it a place people want to go and make it affordable. And also having that constant traffic – the hotel, the community center, people coming in for the different events,” Stokes said. “What I’d love to do for the next step is to look at the best community centers and see what they are doing and trying to move those things into our facility to make it as appealing to the community as possible. You don’t want to put things in there people don’t need.”

What people need – that is the integral part of the concept. It goes back to the mission of connecting people to God, the pastor said. They don’t want to be in the business of running a hotel. “We’re not into hotel management. We’re into sharing God’s love,” he said.

“We’re still doing redemptive work in the community. And the community is thrilled to have us because we’re going to be building a destination resort hotel right on the major thoroughfare that goes from the parkway to the Ocean City bridge.”

He believes part of being welcome is not being a burden to taxpayers.

“There is a section of the building that could be considered non-profit but the reason Somers Point is appreciating it so much is that it will not be sucking off the city in terms of the city’s revenues,” Stokes said. “We will be a contributor … Whenever a church shows up in a city, the city goes ‘Oh, great, here comes another non-profit taking up several acres of land that won’t be taxable income.’ We’re coming and saying, ‘No, we have a for-profit entity that’s also going to be contributing to the city and also accomplishing our vision as well.’”

Directed to the lot

Stokes said church officials met with representatives of Somers Point at the Somers Point Diner. They had been considering the empty House of Booze building on Shore Road near the causeway, but were cautioned it wouldn’t be a good fit and could run into opposition. Before that, the church looked at the Verizon property in Marmora, but utility issues quashed that idea.

The Somers Point officials, Stokes said, had another idea.

“We got in the car with them and they drove us to the property on MacArthur Boulevard and said ‘this would be a wonderful place for you guys and we’ll do whatever we can to help you.’ That’s how we got to looking at that piece of property,” Stokes said.

The lot is larger than it seems from the road. The pastor said it is shaped like the state of Florida and as it goes north from the boulevard, it goes to a wooded area then turns east and backs up to the parking lot across Shore Road from Josie Kelly’s Public House.

Stokes said the owners agreed to allow Coastal Christian to use the restaurant’s parking lot on Sunday mornings, thus allowing the church to accommodate more members. (The church has 1,000 members who attend the three Sunday morning services at present and another 5,000 people who tune in online, according to Stokes.)

$8 million for phase one

The first phase of the project is to raise $8 million to fund the first step, breaking ground by the end of this year to build the two-story community center/church with a partially subterranean first floor for a children’s education facility. The facility would be children’s church on Sundays but a school during the year, part of the vision of having secondary functions for every part of the complex.

Stokes believes – and he notes it is a controversial stand – that there will be greater interest in Christian education because of the Equality Act, a bill in Congress to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, education, housing and more.

 “I believe there will be a resurgence of parents who want their children to receive biblical, scriptural values,” he said. “It’s already happening in the public schools where they’re protesting children being educated on sexuality in preschool and what’s even considered to be deviant sexual behavior in junior high.” He said parents will want more of a say in how their children are educated and not have views foisted on them by the state.

As for what grades the school would entail, that, too, hasn’t been formulated yet.

The entire project is estimated to cost $20 million, but the plan is for the rest of the mortgage to be paid through the hotel revenues.

If things go according to plan, the first phase could be built by the end of 2022. After that the hotel would be built as the church also raises funds by selling off the properties it owns in Ocean City.

Stokes said the church is not asking for money and doesn’t plan a heavy-handed or gimmicky approach, such as setting up a thermometer to track how much is being raised.

He told the congregation a little more than a week ago that Coastal Christian is going on a three-step journey. 

“The first step is to pray and to hear from God what he is calling you to do. We didn’t ask for any money. … If he tells you to give then give. If you have a backhoe or are a painter or a plumber, maybe that’s how God is going to use you. You pray and you tell us.”

The second step is to “consider their sphere of influence.” That is for people who may not go to Coastal Christian but have watched what the church has done, helping a couple restore their marriage or helping an addict get off the bondage of drugs. “They want to give because they see the influence of what has happened,” he said.

The third step is “encouraging everyone to discover their spiritual gift.”

“We believe that God has given each person a unique gift, whatever that might be,” Stokes said. “It might be generosity, but it might be compassion, it might be teaching. Find out what it is and start using your spiritual gift because part of your journey here is the hotel and all this, but that is just a vehicle to actually share the gospel.”