From Portable to Permanent, The Long Road Home

Covenant Church, Grove City, has quite literally been a church on the move.
Since launching in 2010, the church plant has been portable, meeting in various rented facilities over the years.
All that changed on Sunday, January 5, 2025, when Covenant Church gathered in its new building which is right where they wanted to be – in the middle of their target area.
“It’s good to be home,” said Lead Pastor David Palmer.
Palmer was a member of the team that launched Covenant Church and has seen the church grow from a launch team of 25-30 to a congregation of 700-800 in attendance each week.
He and his wife Jara felt called to help plant a church while in grad school.
“We moved here for the purpose of planting the church,” he said. “We grew up in Wooster so we’re Ohio people. We were living in Lynchburg, Virginia, as we prepared to plant. We were both in grad school down at Liberty University.”
Despite Covenant Church moving from location to location, Palmer and his wife Jara, have grown to call Grove City home.
“It’s weird to think about,” he said. “I lived in Wooster for 13 years and now it’s been 15 years in Grove City, so I’m more Grove City than I am Wooster.”
However, Grove City wasn’t originally the target area for Covenant Church, according to Palmer.
“You sort of say ‘yes’ to God before you know where he’s going to send you,” he noted.
The launch team spent a year trying to figure out the who, what, where, and when of launching the church, and a survey from Send Network helped point them toward focus cities to consider.
“Some of the focus cities were Boston, Portland, and Columbus, and so we prayed about all of those cities,” Palmer said. “My wife and our families had fingers crossed for Columbus.”
The launch team visited Boston, Portland, and Columbus as they tried to discern God’s will for the new work.
While driving around Columbus, the Lord led them to their target area.
“At one point we just turned off on the Stringtown Road exit, probably because it was exit 100, and started driving down Buckeye Parkway seeing all of this development taking place, looking left and right, and realizing that there were no churches in the midst of these neighborhoods,” he said.
The area is home to families with children, many of whom were experiencing milestones in their lives.
“You hit some of those points where you’re more spiritually open than others,” Palmer said. “You have kids or you get married or you move, but you’re spiritually open at those points. That was our thought – there’s a whole bunch of people here that we think we can reach. We felt like this was a mission field. And so we targeted Grove City and we moved here in 2010.”
Covenant experienced its first relocation move before it launched.
“We had been planning to meet in Jackson Middle School, right in the middle of Buckeye Parkway, but the school levy failed,” he said. “They canceled all sports, all extracurricular activities, and all weekend contracts.”
The fledgling church ended up meeting at Regal Cinema off Georgesville Road, northwest of Grove City. This was just the first of many facilities Covenant Church would call home during the next 15 years.
The church gathered in locations in and around Grove City including two different movie theatres, a middle school, a church in Galloway, and an out-of-business LA Fitness. They met in some locations for a few months and others for several years, setting up and tearing down each week.
During the COVID pandemic, the theater they were meeting in shut down and they met online for a few months until the Lord provided a new location at an out-of-business L.A. Fitness.
“We grew quite a bit during the pandemic because people were hungry for in-person worship,” he said.
According to Palmer, being a portable church comes with limits but Covenant Church found ways to overcome them.
“Being portable, you have a timeline. So there’s not a lot of Sunday School opportunity. There’s not a lot of fellowshipping,” he said. “Movie theaters aren’t great for fellowshipping, and that forced us to do our discipleship processes in small groups.”
Covenant has followed a small group model since its launch with members meeting in homes throughout the week, and Palmer says they will continue their discipleship process in small groups.  
“I think that’s ultimately what has matured and kept our church strong through so much transience between places and spaces,” Palmer said. “God created you for spiritual leadership, not just for yourself, but to grow to a place where you can lead, pray for, support, encourage, influence, and challenge other believers in their walk.”
Palmer says he never realized that it was unusual for a church to be transient for 15 years.
“I didn’t realize how odd it was until all these mature believers and experienced believers were saying, ‘That’s weird. Just so you know, that’s weird,’” he said. “That’s just a testament to God and his presence and goodness.”