Fresh Life finds flock in Kalispell

Less than a year ago, Levi Lusko opened Fresh Life Church in Kalispell with a Bible study attended by 14 people.

On Jan. 6 at 10 a.m., Fresh Life Church at the Strand will hold its first service in its new facility, a converted movie theater that seats 400 in downtown Kalispell.

The church needs all that room.

It already has outgrown its current facility on the top floor of the old VFW building on Main Street, with an average Sunday attendance of about 250 during two morning services.

"Everyone I talk to said this would take a lot longer," Lusko said. "My friends said it takes years to start a church. God decided to slam it into high gear."

Lusko, 25, came from a background of working in and speaking to churches of tens of thousands of people, mostly in Southern California.

Though by comparison Fresh Life is still a small congregation, the first year of growth has been a welcome surprise and a bit of a challenge for Lusko.

"It's been a whirlwind," he said. "It felt like we were skiing in front of an avalanche."

Lusko came to Kalispell after being asked to speak at Majestic Valley Arena's Christ Help crusade in the summer of 2006. As a Colorado native with a love for the mountains, he was immediately drawn to the Flathead Valley, so the church where he was a teaching pastor in Orange County gave him support to start a church here.

His vision was for a welcoming place completely lacking in pretense, where there is no membership or even an offering time. There would be no expectations for dress. ["My heart is to put the gospel in blue jeans," Lusko said.] Sermons would be given biblically verse by verse, as opposed to topically.

"I think there is a hunger for and excitement to encounter God without religious trappings," Lusko said.

The concept obviously caught on with people of all ages and backgrounds in the Flathead Valley. Lusko said in his worship services he sees "soccer moms sitting next to sophomores, people with gray hair, spiked hair and no hair."

After he started the church in January 2007, around 100 people attended the Easter service and two months after starting a second service, it was standing-room-only at both.

"I remember looking around at people on the floor and saying, 'This is a good problem, but it's a problem,'" Lusko said.

Though the church focuses on the basics of God, it strives to stay modern, using up-to-date technology to share the message and a rock band during services.

In the church's Main Street location, those who preferred or who couldn't find a seat upstairs could have a cappuccino in the downstairs coffee shop while watching the service on one of five big-screen plasma televisions.

The need to stay current didn't deter Lusko's passion for moving his church to an 88-year-old movie house.

In fact, the old-time-theater feel of the Strand won't be altered, with the seats remaining as is (though with a good cleaning), the red and gold curtains still lining the walls, and even the screen staying in place.

The frames that used to hold posters advertising current and future movie attractions now hold movie-style posters promoting the church.

"We want to keep the vibe of a 1920s theater in downtown Kalispell," Lusko said.

Lusko said the movie-theater atmosphere is a perfect fit for his church's ministry, which he said aims not to take members from other churches but to reach those who aren't religious.

"I walked in the first time and said, 'This is so hip and so perfect.' It's not intimidating. It's not threatening. People who remember seeing 'Terminator 2' here can come back and go to church here."

The church has done some work on the building, adding a stage and sound system. The upstairs spaces in the Strand building, which previously had been rented out to various tenants, will become classrooms and church offices.

Lusko said Phil Harris, the owner of the Strand who closed the downtown theaters after opening the Stadium 14 complex, has been "extremely generous and pleasant to work with," in ironing out the details of the church taking over the building, being purchased through a rent-to-own plan.

The year has also brought the birth of Lusko's second child, Lenya, now 3 months old, and he is proud to be raising an official Montana native.

His first daughter, Alivia, 2, was born to his wife, Jennifer, in an ocean-view hospital in Laguna Beach, Calif. He said the experience of having the second child at North Valley Hospital was without question the superior one.

"The care here far exceeded the first birth," he said. "We were not just a number here. They just excelled at everything."

It's all been part of a year that's been the most momentous of Lusko's life.

"The birth of a church, the birth of a baby," he said. "It's been incredibly great. God is good."

For more information, visit www.freshlifechurch.org

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com