What To Expect | The Outpost Church

We know that attending a new church for the first time can be a bit of a scary experience. We also know that much of that comes from the fear of the unknown. What will it be like? Where do we go? What should I wear? We completely understand all of these questions and more and want to make your first visit to The Outpost a pleasant and comfortable one.

When you arrive at The Outpost (directions can be found here) you will find plenty of parking in the rear of the building at the Yelm Community Schools district offices parking lot. Our services start at 10:30 a.m. so arrive a few minutes early. From there, you can enter around the side of the building where a black a-frame sign points to the entrance.

When you come inside, you will be greeted by one of our friendly guest services team members who will help you get connected and get your children registered for kids church. Please grab some fresh hot coffee and donuts courtesy of The Shiplap Shop and Coffee House next door and come on in.

During COVID we have spaced out our seating and will provide hand sanitizer and masks for anyone needing them to ensure a safe environment for everyone in attendance.

Our services typically last an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes with a coffee-house style worship set and a message (check out our YouTube channel or the Messages link on this website for our current series topic). We ask that people come as they are and not feel pressured to dress or look any certain way to find community and belonging here.

Our hope is that we would be a church where anyone is comfortable coming into this space. This means that we are here to love everyone regardless of their background, beliefs, or perceived personal shortcomings and our Sunday gathering environment reflects that ethic.

We cannot wait to meet you and want to encourage you to reach out with any questions you might have.

The Outpost Church

The Outpost Church is the newest church to be planted in the Surround the Sound network of churches started by Sunbreak Baptist Church in Lacey WA. Our goal is to plant a life-giving church in Yelm that would provide a safe place for anyone to come explore faith in Jesus. We began in January of 2020 with a small group of Yelm residents who were committed to starting a church that was genuinely for the community of Yelm. With every passing week, we are adding more people to our launch team who simply want to serve their city in the love of Jesus. Our plan is to gather others who have this same heart of connecting the disconnected with the hope that is in Jesus. As we continue building momentum throughout the spring and summer months we are marching towards the launch of the new church in the fall of 2020.

Why did we choose the name 'The Outpost'?

An outpost lies at the edge of the wilderness and is the last place you visit before a sojourn in the wilderness for training and equipping. The outpost is also the first place you visit upon return from the wilderness for rest and refuge. Both of these concepts are deeply connected to the vision and mission of The Outpost Church in Yelm.

The Bible tells us that our job is to "equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:12)" and we want to do just that. We believe the Church is most effective when every believer sees themselves as a full-time minister and are actually equipped to function that way.

We also believe that the Church is the most visible expression of the Kingdom of God. God's Kingdom is a place of goodness, rest, and prosperity. As we seek to live as citizens in God's Kingdom now, we want our community to display the attributes of that Kingdom by providing rest and refuge to any who come to The Outpost.

Why Yelm?

Yelm may be a small town but it is a city on the move! With nearly +8K people largely consisting of young military families. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Washington State and is poised to more than double in size over the next decade.

This awesome city is filled with a mix of young families with small children transplanted in from all over the country as well as long-time Yelm residents. While there are some amazing churches in Yelm doing great things to serve the physical, social, and spiritual needs of the community, there is still much work to be done. As of now, the most effective way to reach those who are not currently connected to the community of faith is by planting new churches.

If current trends hold true, there will be somewhere between three to five thousand churches that will close their doors for the last time this year. Not only are we not planting enough churches each year to cover the number of those closing, but even if we were, this would still not come close to making up for the annual growth in population.

Yelm is no exception to these statistics.

Every church has a life-cycle and if we failed to regularly plant new churches in Yelm soon there would be no churches left. Even from a purely non-spiritual perspective, this would be catastrophic for our city as the churches in Yelm are responsible for spearheading the vast majority of services that help the homeless, the financially disadvantaged, those in addiction recovery, and hundreds of other types of aid that add up to make a monumental impact to the overall quality of life for all Yelm residents.

Yelm needs churches. At The Outpost, we hope to continue the legacy of service and love to our community that has been present through the churches that have been and are still currently serving our city in a big way.