A milestone reached: Water of Life Church is debt free for new building

Pastor Johannes Slabbert and his flock at the Water of Life Church in Cowley is feeling especially blessed these days after a special ceremony took place on Sunday, Jan. 19 – the complete retirement of the church’s debt.

The debt was incurred from the project to construct a church facility in Cowley after the church congregation met for years at a variety of locations.

Pastor Slabbert, in a recent interview that included church elder Mike Graves, noted that the Water of Life Church is an independent church that, though affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, must perform its own fundraising for projects.

“What we really are part of is the bigger body of Christ, a New Testament Bible believing church,” he said, made up of people who feel that God changed their life and are led to help the church both financially and physically as they are able.

Slabbert and his family moved to the community in October of 2016 for a new church startup, having lived in Casper for a year after moving to Wyoming from North Carolina. After holding a Bible study at his home for several months, he led his first service as the Water of Life Church on October 8, 2017, at Rocky Mountain Elementary School. He said at the time the Bible study group came up with the name from the story in John 4 about the woman at the well in which Jesus says, “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Fundraising began for the flock to build a home of their own, and on March 24, 2019, the church dedicated a piece of ground on South Third East in Cowley across the street from the car wash. The land was completely paid for, and fundraising began for the construction of a building.

Two years later, the church had raised enough money to erect a building and had dug and poured the foundation, and in late July of 2021 a group of volunteers from Church Building Ministries, Inc., of Summit, Mississippi, gathered at the church site to begin the process. Slabbert said at the time that an initial $275,000 had been raised, and another $200,000 came in from a single large donation.

With money for materials in place, the 29 volunteers from five states, plus local volunteers, went to work that week, initially building floor trusses, the floor and walls, which had been built lying flat and were then raised into position and fastened together. The crew also worked on internal walls. Volunteers returned in September to build the roof trusses and enclose the building, Slabbert said. 

With momentum growing for the new church congregation, Water of Life leaders realized they needed more room, so an upstairs space that had been walled off from the main sanctuary needed to be converted into seating, and work was done to remove the wall. But that decision necessitated an expensive fire suppression system, since building codes require a two-story commercial building to have such a system, which Slabbert said added another $70,000 to the price of the project.

Work was slow as more fundraising was conducted, but a group from Vermont and then the Mississippi group came the following summer about the time the fire suppression system was installed to begin finish work like drywall, insulation, plumbing, siding and the like, but all of that work took time, and the project was almost at a standstill, Slabbert said, joking that he called the finish work “The Wall of Jericho,” adding, “ We could not get people to finish the drywall.”

And then a knight in shining armor arrived. Cory Woods from Crossway Church in Sulpher, Oklahoma, was leading a group for a project at the Cowboy Church in Sheridan, and they heard about the Water of Life project.

“The good thing about them was how they met us,” Graves said. “They took a call for another church in Sheridan, heard about us and called Johannes: ‘Do you need some help?’”

The Crossway group had purchased flooring that it turned out was not needed in Sheridan, and having a member of the team who installed flooring for a living, volunteered to come to Cowley. Upon arrival, they found that the drywall was not finished, so they jumped in to finish that work, including texturing, then laid flooring in the foyer and kitchen.

HVAC work had to be completed in the meantime, and the team from Oklahoma returned in the spring of 2024, making the trip in the wake of a late April tornado that struck Sulpher and other communities. There was a man on the team whose parents lost their home in the tornado, and yet he traveled to Cowley to help others, Slabbert marveled. 

The team installed flooring in the sanctuary and the upstairs, furniture was brought in and a final inspection was held. A certificate of occupancy was issued. The first service was held in the new building in June of 2024.

About that time, the church still owed some $50,000 on the project, and an individual stepped forward with $20,000, reducing the debt to $30,000. After making quarterly payments for some time, the church still owed $25,200, but an individual paid $20,000 again, reducing the debt to $5,200. A local family then announced recently that $5,200 would be their tithe, and they paid the tithe in advance, paying off the building. The church was debt free.

A grateful Water of Life congregation held a ceremony on Sunday, Jan. 19, during which a paid-in-full receipt was burned at the lectern.

The church

Slabbert and Graves said there are around 100 or more congregants associated with the Water of Life Church, with an average Sunday attendance of 65 to 70. Services are held each Sunday at 10:30 a.m., and a men’s group meets Tuesdays at 6 a.m., followed by a women’s study at 10 a.m. An adult Bible study group and youth group meet Wednesdays at 6 p.m.

The Celebrate Recovery group meets Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m.

Slabbert said it has been nice to have a place for people to gather.

“The building is not the church, and when you finally have a building, you don’t worship your building, but you worship God, and out of your worship of God your building gets used,” he said. “When the building is used it’s amazing.”

Having the facility has enabled Water of Life to minister in myriad ways, Slabbert said, for instance hosting a fundraising dinner last fall for the Elk Fire in the Bighorn National Forest.

“It frees you up to do ministry as God directs,” he said.

The building has been used for a Christmas gathering, a family movie night and more.

“It has just helped us as a church family to do church family things together and invite the community to do something without having to worry about whether we have a place to meet, so it’s been pretty cool,” Slabbert said. “We want this building to be available to the community if they have a need and be a lighthouse in the community and not just a building (for one church).”

When the building was being planned, only the school buildings and the log gym were available for events, but even though the community center adjacent to the log gym has been added, Slabbert would like to see the new church building be used for weddings, meetings, family events and more.

“It’s our way of giving back to the community and getting to know people,” he said.