Continue the Story

On August 20, 2025, Christian Chapel members approved the Continue the Story Building Expansion Project. This $3.5 million, 18-month project will accommodate current growth and create space for future ministry.

Over the last 10 years, Christian Chapel has grown by over 100%. In 2014 our average Sunday worship participation was 314 people each week. In 2025 that number has grown to over 700. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 – 1,200 people who call Christian Chapel their home church. 

This growth has been prayed for, welcomed, and celebrated. It’s a privilege for us to help so many people discover the beauty and blessing of life in Christ. It has also created numerous facility challenges for us. We currently are experiencing space limitations in the Nursery, Chapel Kids areas, Chapel Youth, Sunday morning worship (in 2nd and 3rd service), and in our community space for Wednesday night dinners and other events.

Dave Paulson was raised in the Norwegian-Lutheran tradition of unrelenting church attendance. He found Jesus at eleven in the basement of his grandparents’ Lutheran Church in Princeton, MN. 

Upon graduating from high school, after a particularly cold winter, he had two primary goals – to get warm and to find the woman of his dreams. He arrived as a freshman at ORU and quickly determined that goal number one had been met. It took three years to accomplish goal number two – in the form of Claire. They raised three kids and now have six grandchildren. Dave recently retired after 37 years in IT at Saint Francis. He is an avid gardener, and even though some have declared it a most boring topic, Dave is always up for gardening discussions.

Dave & Claire have attended Christian Chapel for 28 years. Dave has served with Rangers, taught Sunday School, and as a counselor at RFK Camp. His focus for the past nine years has been the RFK Mentoring program. After returning from camp in 2015, Dave wondered if there was any way he could continue to spend time with one of his campers, a seven-year-old living at the Laura Dester shelter. He learned that there was indeed a formalized mentoring program – delivered as part of the Royal Family Kids structure. The program had not been implemented at Christian Chapel and was waiting for someone to initiate the process.

The RFK Mentoring program involves a monthly meeting where the mentors and their matched kids meet together for activities, crafts, games, songs, and Bible time. Mentors also spend time one-on-one with their mentees. Tamara Beasler directs the Club meeting, and Dave leads the Mentoring program. 

In the past nine years, 128 kids from trauma have participated in the RFK Mentoring program at Christian Chapel. During that time, 81 adults have served as mentors. Because of the hurt, pain, rejection, loss that many of our kids have been through there’s a great need for healthy adult role models. The mentors are godly, committed adults who care about them. They help the kids turn the corner from despair to hope. Mentors become an important person in the child’s life and earn credibility. Dave continues to marvel at the selflessness exhibited by the mentors as they commit their time and financial resources to connecting with their mentees.

Prayer support is welcomed for RFK Club & Mentoring. Please pray for caregivers allowing the kids to participate in the program, trained counselors and camp staff embracing the mentoring role, and the Holy Spirit filling the mentors with wisdom, discernment, and insight as they spend one-on-one time with their matched child.