By Bill Brady
The one-time home of Falcon Heights United Church of Christ has a new name: Garden Community Church.
It also has a new address, even though the building hasn’t moved an inch.
Falcon Heights UCC merged with New Life Presbyterian Church of Roseville last January, with the new entity making its home in the former Falcon Heights UCC building at Holton Street and Garden Avenue.
Congregants chose the new name via ranked-choice voting at the merged entity’s first all-congregational meeting on Feb. 1.
A call for nominations attracted more than 50 naming suggestions, and “Forty percent of them either contained the word ‘garden’ or reflected a gardening metaphor,” noted church member Bryan Seyfarth, who spearheaded the process.
This makes some sense, given the location of the building.
But, of course, “garden” resonates beyond the street name. It reflects both congregations’ historical focus on care for the earth and climate justice.
“It fits what we’re about on so many levels,” said co-pastor the Rev. Rick King. “Being a church is a lot like gardening. You prepare the soil, plant seeds, water and fertilize. But you’re still at the mercy of factors beyond your control, like weather.
‘So instead of trying to engineer the perfect church, we’re planting seeds of love, peace and justice, reveling in future possibilities but with no guarantees.”
It was important for any name to resonate with the former congregants of New Life, who arguably had the bigger adjustment in giving up their building to move in with Falcon Heights UCC.
Fittingly, New Life had been widely known for its award-winning community garden, not to mention its fall pumpkin sale that annually turned their grounds at Larpenteur and Victoria into a giant pumpkin patch.
“People who didn’t know us often called us ‘the garden church,’” said New Life’s former pastor Riz Prakasim, now co-pastor at Garden Community. “It was a big component of our identity. So this new name feels right.”
Now all they had to do was put the church on Garden Avenue. The official address of Falcon Heights UCC had always been 1795 Holden Street, even after a 2006 remodeling moved the main entrance to the Garden Avenue side of the building. They recently worked with the city of Falcon Heights to change the address to 1440 Garden.
“The City has been great about helping us to manage this,” said Seyfarth. “They allowed us to put up signs around town pointing people to the church, and within a week we had visitors who’d never been to either of our churches before. We’re really grateful for their help.”
To learn more about Garden Community Church, visit their website, churchongarden.org. Better yet, attend their regular weekly service at 10:15 a.m. on Sundays.
As Pastor Riz put it, “Come to see the community that’s growing at Garden.”
Bill Brady is a copy editor and writer for the Bugle.
