Eagle Brook megachurch to build campus in north Rochester

Matthew Stolle, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Updated ·3 min read

Jun. 19—ROCHESTER — Officials for Eagle Brook Church, a Minnesota megachurch headquartered in Centerville, Minnesota, announced Monday, June 19, 2023, that the church has signed a purchase agreement for land in Rochester to build a permanent campus. The land is in Cascade Township around 75th Street Northwest.

The announcement comes nearly four years after the nondenominational church began holding services at Mayo Civic Center in the fall of 2019 as part of an expansion outside of the Twin Cities area.

Eagle Brook, officials say, is currently in the first phase of fundraising to build the campus. There was no mention in the Eagle Brook statement of the amount the church hopes to raise. Construction is projected to begin in late 2024. Eagle Brook will continue to hold services at Mayo Civic Center until the new campus is open.

Eagle Brook was founded in White Bear Lake in 1948 and started out as a baptist church, but eventually dropped the Baptist designation to make it more appealing to people not interested in church labels. Many of its members are former Catholics and Lutherans.

Another aspect of the church's appeal is the more free-flowing nature of its services. A cafe allows attendees to get a cup of coffee, mochas or smoothies to sip during the service. There is a space for kids to play, and parking lot attendants and front door greeters are present to greet members.

"At Eagle Brook, we are passionate about reaching people for Christ and seeing lives changed through a relationship with Jesus," said Jason Strand, Eagle Brook's senior pastor. "We are excited about this new chapter in Eagle Brook's story and look forward to sharing more information about this exciting new phase as we continue this process."

Steve Whicker, senior pastor of the Rochester campus, said the COVID-19 pandemic "put a damper on our momentum," but the campus is pretty much following the trajectory of its other campuses in growth terms.

"Typically, our mobile sites will get up to about 700 to 800 people before we move into a permanent site, and we've been averaging a little over 700 (in Rochester)," Whicker said. "So, we're on track for where we typically are with a mobile site."

Eagle Brook has nine campuses in the state, including Rochester. As it looks to build a permanent Rochester location, it is eyeing growth opportunities in other areas of the state. It is looking to expand its footprint in Greater Minnesota by launching two more mobile sites in addition to Rochester.

Eagle Brook is also opening two more churches in the Twin Cities area, having purchased a building in downtown Minneapolis and opening a location in Maplewood.

Whicker declined to identify the exact location of its proposed Rochester site or the size of the parcel, "because we just signed a purchase agreement on the property, and it won't close for a while."

Eagle Brook says the church has an average weekly in-person attendance of 20,000 people and online attendance of 25,000.

When the church announced four years ago that it was launching a new campus in Rochester, the move represented its first foray into Greater Minnesota. At the time, all of its campuses were concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area.

Officials said the decision to establish a church in Rochester was driven by Rochester's status as one of the state's fastest-growing communities, Mayo Clinic and the transient nature of many of its residents.