History of Dwelling Place NRV

Dwelling Place NRV (DPNRV) started in June 2000 as Dwelling Place Christian Fellowship when three different church’s leaders came together in prayer that eventually brought their congregations together for worship. The life of DPNRV is a miraculous testament of God’s faithfulness.

The Founders

Mark & Margie Akers originally began their ministry in 1982 as part of the pastoral team at Christiansburg Mennonite church until 1995 when they moved to Florida. In 1998, they returned and started Cornerstone Church at the Christiansburg High School before merging into Dwelling Place in 2000. Mark Akers was born and raised in Christiansburg and met his wife Margie at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1978. They have three adult children and two grandchildren.

Tom & Ingrid Burbey moved to Blacksburg from Reno, Nevada, to serve as a Virginia Tech Geology Professor in 1996 and started a fellowship of five families known as Blue Ridge House Church with oversight at Rancho Christian Center in Rancho Cucamonga, California, before merging into Dwelling Place in 2000.

Rick & Paula Sizemore completed a Southwestern Theological Seminary internship at the Virginia Tech Baptist Student Union in 1990 before moving to pastor East Stone Gap Baptist Church in Wise County Southwest Virginia. The Sizemores returned to Radford University and began a campus ministry in 1991 and within 4 years it had doubled and expanded to Virginia Tech. They returned to East Stone Gap Virginia and eventually migrated to Boone, North Carolina in 1998, before moving to the New River Valley in 1999 to start a church to minister to students and families under a North Carolina based ministry, Kingsway Connection. Rick and Paula met in Okeechobee, Florida where they were heavily involved in FCA and youth ministries while Rick managed a huge real estate business with his family and Paula taught school. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.

How DP Started

Initially Dwelling Place met in a room at Virginia Tech’s Performing Arts building. The first year the group consisted of 4 families which soon grew to include 17 students. In the fall of 1999, a large group of Korean students from a campus based fellowship joined. The summer of 2000 the Korean student group felt led by God to branch off as a separate church.

Meanwhile, over the summer of 2000, the Holy Spirit began to knit together the three founders. These couples were looking for healthy change and teamwork. Mutual friends who were part of the Christian Faculty/Staff brought their respective leaders together to pray for the community and one another. As they met together, they learned that each shared similar passion for reaching the students with Jesus Christ’s love. Each had a love for the vibrant intimate Spirit-led contemporary worship and God’s Word. Each had a desire to see the church members trained/discipled and released to reach others.

One of the intercessors who joined the leaders together shared a vision of four confluent streams that joined together to form a river. He believed each stream represented the separate churches: Dwelling Place, Blue Ridge and Cornerstone. The fourth stream in that vision has yet to be determined.

During the summer each church visited Dwelling Place and continued to pray for direction. Dwelling Place was a portable church that used community gathering space and was stored in everyone’s car, truck and home only to be carried in and set up every Sunday morning. By the end of the summer the oversight for each church had given blessings for the merge and they proceeded to knit the three together as one.

In the fall of 2001 the group moved from its meeting place at Virginia Tech to Gilbert Linkous Elementary School in Blacksburg. God began to stir the people to express His glory through the Arts — painting, dance and music. Home based fellowships, prayer groups, bible studies and intercessors were another way in which God was using Dwelling Place to promote unity among the Christian community.

At the end of the year, the church was experiencing the difficulty of “portable church;” The weight of weekly having to set up and tear down and store in various places had weighed heavily on the people and in spring 2002 the congregation quickly raised $40,000 over the course of three months to purchase the necessary sound equipment, truck, trailer and portable church cabinets to ease the burden and create a Portable church system.

Where DP Started

In the summer of 2002, the collective group of churches began meeting in the old Blacksburg Middle School. The focus of God’s expression of Himself through the arts continued to grow and healing of hurts and emotions were received through prayer counseling. The congregation continued to grow and because of changes in the ownership of the Middle School building Dwelling Place leaders began to pursue a building of its own. A group of intercessors found the Montgomery Newspaper Building who previously produced the News Messenger Building. The location conveniently located half way between both Christiansburg, Blacksburg and Radford would provide the visibility as well as the physical space where the church could grow.

The vision was a central location where all generations could come and experience a relationship with the Lord. Healing of hearts, reconciliation of relationships, the outpouring of creative expression, a safe place for children and a rising generation of teenagers and young adults. And there was always accommodations for coffee, good coffee, specialty coffee, coffee equipment, coffee shop, coffee fellowship.

October 12, 2002, Dwelling Place Christian Fellowship was incorporated in the State of Virginia, and received its official 501c3 not-for-profit church status.

In March 2003 the church took possession of 3325 North Franklin Street, Christainsburg, Montgomery County, under a lease purchase agreement that required a real estate closing in July 2003. The congregation was at the crossroads to receive a perfectly positioned building at half of what the market value was demanding. While raising down payments and renovation funds the congregation spent many weekends tearing down walls, cleaning up printing press ink and type setting materials to create a safe place for children, usable bathrooms and a room to worship.

In the spring of 2004 the building was refinanced to complete the renovations and create additional space for next generation ministries.

Two Decades of Growth

Rick & Paula had started an internship in 1993 with the vision to raise up future Christian leaders. However, in 2003 they witnessed exponential growth in 18-30 year olds from their investments in camps and conferences and a two- year internship program that coupled discipleship with experiential learning together and traveled to disenfranchised cities, regions and countries to share the love of God and grow in faith to be equipped to join brothers and sisters in Kingdom works around the world. This internship ministry grew to over 100 graduates by 2012 and the remnants of this program can be seen leading at DPNRV as well as churches throughout the Southeast USA.

This grassroots church came with rich connections in the body of Christ through the oversight organizations to the overseas network and relationships. We were often found on investment trips to Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia to share the intense discipleship and inner healing ministry we enjoyed here in the USA.

The Rock Climbing gym was the anomaly in the church community as it was installed in 2003. This would be a unique outreach that was not part of the original vision but certainly drew attention to the community and was a great place to share faith hidden inside the building.

In 2004, Eagles Nest Regeneration Ministry (now housing over 100 men in Floyd, Virginia) originated after founders Robbie and Toni Maddox moved to Virginia from Florida. ENRM is a specialized therapeutic work program investing in men who struggle in addiction to see their lives transformed from the inside out with a second chance to be a community contributor and a healthy part of their family and their lives.

2005 brought the first expansion in the elder team and seamlessly occurred when the Sizemore’s chose to purchase retreat property on Cascade Drive in Pembroke that would later be 214 (Hosea 2:14). This facility was upgraded and became home to the internship and training ministries as well as an event center in it’s own right.

2006-2012 embodied a time of planting churches. From the suburban Atlanta neighborhood, to the mountain community of Big Stone Gap reaching over to the lake community in Moneta south of Roanoke, Virginia, the Lord began expanding our boundaries. It was also during this time that the missions ministry in the Balkans shifted to the Middle East in partnership with 24/7 Christine and Craig Westoff.

Dayspring Christian Academy (originally DaySpring Church) was growing by leaps and bounds and in 2007 expanded their high school and created an additional campus at Dwelling Place in the lower level. This was paired with the opening of the Tree of Life Daycare and Learning Center and quickly the building was filled seven days of the week with discipleship and ministry that was investing in the NRV community and the rising generation. After 10 years of collaboration, DaySpring partnered with another school and then consolidated back to one campus.

As Dwelling Place expanded with satellite locations, locally we transitioned from DPCF to DP to DPNRV as we now had DPBSG, DPSML, DPATL, DPHollywood, DPArabic, DPRoanoke, etc. We were partnered with campus ministries before helping establish “Alive at RU” and “VT Kleros” student ministries. The leadership engaged a longtime student minister and his family in 2009 who had established a flourishing ministry at Virginia Tech through the Assemblies called Chi Alpha. Ron and Karen Barnard created a ministry at VT reaching college students that has been modeled all over the nation and in South Africa. The Barnard’s had started their family in _____ before moving to Arkansas to be close to family and lead nationally from the Assemblies Headquarters. In 2013 the Barnard’s felt a call to move to Wilmington, North Carolina, to start a new work - 828Church - now ministering in multiple campuses.

2010 forward began a decade of transition with different parts of the body expanding and stepping into new roles and ventures. Nagib & Halla Saydorous who were exiled found refuge in Christiansburg and were restored to pastoring immigrants from the middle east and settled in Phoenix Arizona in 2012. This was also the season (2012) the elders decided to incorporate women elders into the leadership. We would experience stretching relationally as folks grew into leading churches and started businesses and move forward in God’s plans with their family. Change can be challenging but moving through God’s plan is always for our best. 2016 DPBSG begins a transition to a home church and 2018 DaySpring School consolidates to one campus. Thankfully we remain the family of God in His eternal Kingdom.

Where are we now (2020+)

2020 pandemic brought a dismantling of what we all knew was normal. During this time, the Sizemore’s stepped out from the work they had invested their life into and started a new work (Our Refuge) in the neighboring community of Pembroke. This provided an avenue for church plants (DPATL & DPSML) to join the new work or become independent sister churches (DPSML). This time was lined with the hard work of reconciliation and restoration of relationships.

2021 & 2022 have been a season of restructuring and healing. We encountered a true season of “lament.” We entered a time of of leaders stepping up and the elder team expanding. Finding our God-given identity and empowering the next generation. We moved almost exclusively to team leadership from elders to sunday mornings and next gen. We saw a major thrust of connection through small gatherings called connect groups. This decade also has witnessed a healthy burst of our oldest generation engaged with one another and walking in wisdom and empowerment.

2023 has brought us to a time of rebuilding and establishing vision for moving forward. The elder’s governance of church like we witness in Acts coupled with the engagement of the saints worshiping the Lord and serving one another while reaching their community and sharing the saving revelation of the Gospel of Jesus is gaining momentum.