Antioch’s Genesis Church to hold Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening for new Genesis Family Life Center Feb. 7
Will offer multiple services at former Community Outreach Center
“We’ve been working day and night to transform the place. The new sign just went up today” – Pastor Damon Owens
By Allen D. Payton
Genesis Church of Antioch leaders, Pastor Damon and his wife Shantell Owens invite you and your family to the Ribbon Cutting & Grand Opening of the Genesis Family Life Center on February 7th from 12 Noon to 3:00 pm.
“We are fully persuaded that the Genesis Family Life Center located at 525 East 18th Street in Antioch will be a place of hope and transformation where lives will be changed for the better,” they said.
The center’s slogan, Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly… is from the Bible verse Micah 6:8 which reads, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
The Owens’ shared the following “list of culturally relevant wrap around services” available at the Center:
- Grocery Share Program
- After School Programs for At-Risk Youth
- Senior Day Programs
- Trauma Informed Care
- Business Incubator for Entrepreneurs
- Pop-Up Commercial Kitchen
- Community Youth Development
- Workforce Development
- Prison Re-Entry
- Transitional Housing
The building was purchased from Golden Hills Community Church, which operated their Community Outreach Center there, until last year, for $800,000, according to Golden Hills’ Executive Pastor Matt LaValliere. The two churches are part of the same 170-year-old Baptist denomination known as Converge, for which Pastor Damon is a member of the Board of Overseers of the PacWest division.
Golden Hills also sold Genesis their church building down the street on the corner of Woodland Drive and E. 18th several years ago.
The transition from the COC to the GFLC was quick as, according to Pastor Damon, they signed the loan docs on November 24th.
“Genesis qualified for the loan and closed escrow. God did it,” he exclaimed.
Volunteers from the church then began work the day after Thanksgiving to prepare the Center for opening.
“We’ve been working day and night to transform the place,” Owens shared. “We wanted to bring an open Silicon Valley-type feel for organizations to use the space to provide the wrap-around services.”
“The new sign just went up today,” Pastor Damon added.
Asked if they would be serving meals to the homeless and those in need he said, “We’re going to be providing ready to eat groceries for those people without a kitchen, like those living in the Opportunity Village (transitional housing hotel), next door.”
“This building is just a shell; it is the people who will fill it that matter most,” the Owens shared. “Seeing the G.F.L.C (Genesis Family Life Center) transition from a vision on paper to a functional space has been a journey of faith and hard work.”
For more information about Genesis Church and the new Family Life Center visit https://yourgenesischurch.com.
the attachments to this post:
Construction on the GFLC 12-30-25
Genesis Family Life Ctr sign 2-4-26
Loan doc signed 11-24-25
Genesis Family Life Ctr logo
Genesis Family Life Center GO 02-7-26
