From Church Vision to Community Reality: Pastor Kyle Plew’s Journey with the Lake Chelan Community Center

When Pastor Kyle Plew and a handful of RealLife Church members first gathered around his dining-room table more than a decade ago, they weren’t planning a bigger church — they were planting the seed of a community movement.

‍“This is our moment to finish what we started — and the impact lasts for generations.”   - Kyle Plew

At the time, RealLife was holding services at Chelan High School. “It worked great,” Kyle recalled. “The school was wonderful about letting us rent space for our kids’ programs. But after a few years, we thought, maybe we should have our own building.

That thought quickly evolved into something larger. A small planning group began exploring what other churches had done around the country — from a congregation in Montana that built a water park to another in Iowa that opened a full-scale community center. “Everywhere we looked,” Kyle said, “we saw people asking not what do we need, but what does our community need?"

The turning point came when member Ben Williams asked a simple question: Why are we building something for ourselves? “We’d always said RealLife existed to reach a community, not just grow a church,” Kyle said. “That question made it real.”

From that moment, the vision grew. The team began dreaming about a building that could serve everyone — a gym, meeting rooms, play areas, and event spaces — open to the entire valley. When a donor stepped forward with funds to purchase seven acres of land outside of town, the group formed a nonprofit board to steward the project. That board became the Seven Acres Foundation, and its dream evolved into the Lake Chelan Community Center.

Kyle admits he was naïve about what it would take. “We raised a few hundred thousand dollars right away and thought we were off to the races,” he laughed. “Then the fundraising consultants told us, You’ll never be able to do this as a church — it has to be a community project. They were right.”

What followed was years of persistence, prayer, and partnership. The property swap that brought the project to its current site — conveniently located between Chelan and Manson — opened new possibilities. The board diversified, the design grew to 44,000 square feet, and despite COVID-era setbacks, construction continued.

“There were moments I thought we’d never finish,” Kyle said. “And then a gift would appear out of nowhere — $250,000 from a foundation we’d never met, or a million-dollar donation from Scott and Brooke Isaak. Each step felt like a miracle.”

Today, RealLife Church is one of The Community Center's tenants, paying rent like everyone else. “It’s important for people to know this is truly a community project,” Kyle emphasized. “Our offices are here, our neighbors are here — the Boys and Girls Club, Only7Seconds, small businesses, nonprofits. I love walking in every morning and waving to friends in the coffee shop. The energy here reminds me why we built it.”

What makes him proudest isn’t the building itself but the people behind it. “It’s the house that the community built,” Kyle said. “We’ve got locals and newcomers, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, conservatives and progressives — all working side by side. That’s rare these days.”

Looking Ahead: A Moment to Finish What Was Started

As the gym nears completion and plans move toward the aquatic center, Kyle feels a renewed sense of urgency and optimism. “For the first time in a long while, everything feels within reach,” he said. “If we can come together one more time, we’ll finish what we started.”

He smiled as he reflected on how far things have come. “I used to joke that the first event in the gym would be my retirement party,” he said. “Now, I think we’ll beat that timeline. Once we built it, they came — and if we keep building together, they’ll keep coming.”

‍To make a tax-deductible contribution, visit our fundraising page or contact Executive Director Maribel Cruz at maribel@chelancommunity.org.