Continuing the series on possible locations, we move up west of Calgary now.
Cochrane is another one of these badly swelling small towns, driven by the boom. It has going for it the proximity to the mountains which makes the views and the geography of the town very homey to me. In 1981 it was a paltry 3500 people. In 2006 it has grown to 13 760. This makes it perhaps the smallest of the cities we are considering (with the exception of Redcliff).
We managed to drive through the edges of it on our way up to my parents’ a couple of weeks ago. As you noticed, I loved the geography of the town. But we don’t know a whole lot about it yet.
Pros:
- Proximity to Calgary – easy daughtering to the whole metro area.
- Proximity to Banff/Mountains (my playground)
- Proximity to family (2 hours to Red Deer, 4 hours to Fort Saskatchewan)
- Demand is there (+10k people in 20 years, Outreach Canada places it with a low church ratio)
Cons:
- Maybe too close to Calgary – commuter culture, people with no time.
- Pretty small.
Tags: church planting, Cochrane, locations
[...] regards to seeking God’s will in which community to target. At this time the list includes Cochrane, Okotoks, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat (Redcliff), Spruce Grove/Stony Plain and perhaps St. Albert. We [...]
[...] we will be touring through the five cities (Spruce Grove, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Okotoks and Cochrane) we are considering for our church plant. The really cool thing is that we have local ministry [...]