Florida's Transformation Church shuts down satellite campus months after merger: 'Hard decision'

A large nondenominational church in Florida has shut down a satellite campus less than a year after opening it, but it is still reporting growth in attendance and baptisms.

Transformation Church, a nondenominational congregation that averages about 1,800 in weekly worship attendance, held its final services at its Gulf Breeze location on Sunday.

Transformation Church Executive Pastor Justin Oswald told The Christian Post that “the decision to shut down the location was not an easy one,” especially given that “it wasn’t failing.”

The Gulf Breeze campus was originally its own congregation, Coast Community Church, which merged with Transformation. The two churches had a longtime working relationship.

According to Oswald, Coast Community had seen a decline in its numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic, while its lead pastor was nearing retirement age and seeking a reduced role.

“Through much conversation and prayer, both churches thought it best that instead of Coast closing down, they would become a campus of Transformation Church,” Oswald recounted. “We even kept their pastor on staff with us to play a huge role in pastoral care for our staff and congregation.”

Since opening as a Transformation satellite campus in January, the location has averaged 200 attendees for weekly worship and maintained a steady giving trend.

However, Oswald explained to CP that “ultimately, the decision was prompted by a belief that a healthy church must take priority over the desire to be a growing church.”

“Every week, many families were making very hard choices, in belief of our vision as a Church, to drive to a completely different community to serve on a team to reach people,” he explained.

“We felt, we could continue to ask these people to make hard decisions each week, or we could make one hard decision one time, and prioritize the health of our Dream Team (volunteers) and bring everyone back under one roof at a single location.”

With the campus closed, Oswald reported that “excitement is very high” because “everyone is back at our Northwest Pensacola location.” Some members of Coast Community Church have also joined them for worship.

“There are even a number of families that were a part of Coast Community Church who stayed through the merger and transition, that have become part of our TC Family and will also be staying with us, they will just be making the drive over the bridge to our Northwest Pensacola location,” he told CP.

“For any family or person that does not want to make the drive to Pensacola, we are doing anything we can to help plug them into another great, life-giving church in the Gulf Breeze community.”

Oswald told CP that he believed the situation was “not a sign of decline at all for the church as a whole,” because the church is “experiencing huge growth” in areas including “small group engagement, salvations, and baptisms.”

Transformation Church of Pensacola is not affiliated or connected with other well-known Transformation Church congregations based in South Carolina and Oklahoma.