The Boardwalk becomes church’s permanent home in September

After serving Shreveport and Bossier City for 17 years in a sort of nomadic existence, the Simple Church will soon have a permanent residence of its own. The nondenominational church, which currently holds services in the movie theater at the Boardwalk, is converting an abandoned location at the Bossier City shopping center into a place it can call its own, according to Christi Rhodes, worship leader and bookkeeper. “We all have multiple jobs around here,” she said.

The renovation work is being conducted by Brown Builders and is expected to be finished next month.

“We started 17 years ago when (the Rev.) Justin (Haigler), who was a family pastor over at First Bossier, had a passion to reach the unchurched, and so he and a group of about 80 people came over from First Bossier and started the Simple Church,” Rhodes said. By “unchurched,” she means “people who really didn’t have a church background, people who had been burdened by the church or hurt by the church or people (for whom) it might be very intimidating to walk into one of the biggest churches in Bossier.”

The Simple Church was designed for someone to just “come as you are, that it was OK to walk in in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts as long as you were comfortable coming in to hear the Word of God,” she said.

The Simple Church began in a movie theater 17 years ago this September in the Regal Boardwalk and then spent 10 years at the Shreveport Convention Center. “We have just moved back to the theaters, interim, from January to September, and we have now taken over the old bar that was at the end of the Boardwalk next to the hotel and the building behind the old Copeland’s Bistro. That’s going to be our new church and children’s building,” Rhodes said.

The church doesn’t belong to any formal denomination. Rather, its focus is on the teachings of Jesus Christ. “Our motto has always been to love God, love people and solve problems, and how can we be a help in the community, how can we serve others. Everything’s Bible teachings, life messages, gearing people toward having a relationship growing in Christ,” she said.

“We have Baptists, Catholics, atheists, we have Methodists, a melting pot mixture of people just looking for help and looking to follow the Lord, and also we’re very mission-driven. We are very community-driven in serving different organizations around town,” such a s the Hub, the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission, Common Ground and others, Rhodes said.

Why the move? “We’re not really moving,” said missions pastor Robyn Horton. “We’re finally getting a permanent location. In 17 years, we’ve gone from place to place. … We have gotten to a point now that we need a physical location for lots of different reasons.”

“And we love the Boardwalk because it’s a community spot,” added Rhodes. “We feel like we’re giving back to Bossier City by taking on the long-term lease. We’re trying to help the business down there. We want to give back to our community.”

“It’s given people identity, it’s given people a job, it’s given men a place to serve,” said Horton. “The best thing is being able to attract people to come back down to the Boardwalk. It’s given the Boardwalk (an) incentive to go to other business(es) and go, ‘We’re now going to have this many people in our place every single week.’ So it’s a win for the community for sure and for us.”

The congregation space nears completion at the new property at the Boardwalk in Bossier City.

Brown Builders is in charge of completing the renovation work, with help from the church’s congregants. Even the pastor, the Rev. Justin Haigler, is slapping a paintbrush to the walls. “We are incredible stewards of what God has given us, and we don’t take that lightly,” said Rhodes.

“They’ve replaced floors, they’ve ripped out everything inside one of the buildings. They were completely ripped out by men in our church.”

Brown Builders is responsible for the contract work, such as electrical, HVAC and some plumbing. The church plans to open on Sept. 15.

What sorts of things does the church hope to do in its new home that it couldn’t in the theater? “Well, when we were at the Convention Center, we were only using it Sunday mornings, and we could meet nowhere else or do anything else, no special events,” said Rhodes. “We had to get so creative to do a worship night or a Super Bowl party, or (if) we needed to feed a lot of people or whatever, we didn’t have a place where we could do that.”

That will all change next month. “We’ve always tried to build our church,” Horton said. “It’s always been the idea that it is for the community. It is for everyone. We’re going to work with Bossier so that we can always have opportunities to have doors open to help anyone we can.”