Church On The Prairie Slavic Baptist Church Draws A Big Crowd, And That’S The Problem

A building sits like royalty at the end of Nettleton Lane on Five Mile Prairie.

Everything about it is new. So new, in fact, it is not quite complete. A few basement walls still need paint. One door waits to be installed. The landscaping is on hold until after winter.

But already about 500 people call the Spokane Slavic Baptist Church their church home.

“Our old church at Cannon and Boone was too small,” said Pastor Alexander Sipko, giving more evidence to Spokane’s growing Russian population.

The church is the most recent member of the family of Prairie residents. And like any family, quarrels just come with the territory. As neighbors watch streams of church-goers pass by their homes, they worry about the future of the Five Mile countryside.

One of six Russian churches in the area, the Spokane Slavic Baptist Church is a two-storied structure, spread over 15,916 square feet. It has 112 parking spaces and is bordered by vast, muddy fields. Though services are usually conducted in Russian, Sipko said English translators are available and all are welcome.

Church officials said they chose the site because of the amount of available land.

“There are lots of places in Spokane we looked at, but other areas didn’t have land like this,” Sipko said.

He’s not concerned that almost all of the congregation members have to drive in from other areas.

“It’s no problem,” Sipko said, “because everyone has cars.”

But those very cars are the focus of Prairie residents’ worries. As workers began construction about a year ago, neighbors wondered how the hundreds of extra car trips would affect the already over-burdened prairie roads.

Now their fears have come to fruition.

“It’s terrible,” neighbor Betty Farmer said of the increased traffic. “I don’t mind having a church back there, but they can’t even fit in their parking lot…That’s quite an impact on this two-lane road.”

The roads leading up to and around the prairie are generally slender, no-shouldered and begging for repairs. And every addition to the prairie means more wear and tear on the pitted, pot-holed pavement.

“They’re so narrow,” said neighbor Karin Jorgensen of the roads. “And on Christmas they were so snowy. It was really dangerous.”

The church held its first service on Christmas Day, with a sermon about the birth of Jesus. Afterward, Sipko said he and the church’s 30 other preachers talked about safety with their parishioners.

“We tell them, `Be careful. Be careful,”’ he said. “But mostly it’s just a problem with young boys.”

Many neighbors said they were under the impression the church would have only Sunday services. Indeed, the environmental checklist on file at the county department of building and planning says the church would be used only on Sunday, for four services.

But Sipko said that in addition to two Sunday services, the church now hosts four 80-member choirs that practice four times a week, and another 200 people who gather for Bible study Thursday mornings at 7.

“I never dreamed there’d be so much traffic,” Farmer said.

That traffic should generate some revenue for the prairie in the form of traffic impact fees, which are part of the church’s building agreement.

But Lou Dobberstein, city traffic engineering assistant, said no traffic impact fees have yet been paid. According to the building file, the church owes a one-time fee of $1,430 per evening peak-hour trip.

The fee is calculated by counting the number of car trips the church generates during a one-hour period from 4-6 p.m. on a weekday.

“We have requested a copy of the terms of approval from the county, and will address it from there,” Dobberstein said.

In the meantime, members of the church will continue singing and worshipping. Sipko looks forward to a special service in three or four weeks that will coincide with the grand opening of the church - when all the construction is complete. Then, members will pray for the church, for the neighborhood and for Spokane, and ask God to live in their new building.

But for the most part, Sipko focuses on the present.

“I don’t know about tomorrow,” he said. “The Bible just teaches us to live for today.”