Liberty Lake Baptist: ‘Rise Up, Build’

October 30, 2020
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When Pastor Greg Wilt Sr. looks out at the Liberty Lake community, he sees more than parks and neighborhoods, schools and businesses or roads and roundabouts.

“People often discuss the physical infrastructure of a community, but we do not always think about the spiritual infrastructure,” said Wilt, the founding pastor of Liberty Lake Baptist Church. “We want to be a part of developing the spiritual infrastructure of Liberty Lake and the surrounding area.”

With the celebration of its fifth anniversary this past fall, the church recently made a further investment in the community, purchasing property just west of the Ridgeline High School development with plans to eventually renovate an existing 6,500-square-foot building and move to the new site. Since its founding, Liberty Lake Baptist Church has held services in the Liberty Lake Portal building.

With pastoral structure to his communication, Wilt listed the plans to “Let us rise up and build” (Nehemiah 2:17-18) as one of three “Ts” that currently describe the church — “in transition.” A second T, “timeless,” Wilt said he hopes to apply to the building’s architecture, creating a space “meant for worship, not renovated from retail.” But, of course, the word “timeless” has far broader applications.

“As a church, we are not old-fashioned, we are timeless,” he explained. “We teach the timeless truths, and we sing the timeless songs of the faith.”

Wilt said the final “T” relates to the church’s desire to be “in touch,” as illustrated by its purpose statement: “Liberty Lake Baptist Church exists to glorify God by giving everybody, everywhere, every opportunity to hear the Gospel; learn the timeless truths of God’s word; see the principles of the Bible lived out in the lives of ordinary people; and act upon what they heard, learned, and observed so that they can have a vibrant personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Visitors are invited to join the church for weekly 11 a.m. services at 23403 E. Mission Ave., Suite 112 (temporarily moved online as of this press deadline due to COVID-19).

NOTE: A version of this article first appeared in the 2020 Liberty Lake Yearbook.

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Kuhlmann finds ‘Victory’ in community

June 19, 2020
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Over a March weekend, COVID-19 turned the way business is transacted in the Inland Northwest on its head. By Monday, Liberty Lake resident Dayne Kuhlmann had scheduled three weeks’ worth of Facebook Live Q&A sessions with experts to provide crisis-specific help for local businesses on topics from food service to financial options to marketing.

What might have required weeks of planning came together quickly and organically for Kuhlmann and his Victory Media marketing agency. Kuhlmann held video sessions daily and started building a waiting list of experts willing to help.

“Part of this is the magic of our community,” Kuhlmann said. “Our network of clients and community is just amazing. We attract the type of people who want to help one another.”

This is exactly what he was looking for when he left the traditional marketing world — “I was absolutely miserable with my job” — and launched Victory Media in 2017. He ran it solo out of coffee shops that first year, but less than three years later leads a 12-person agency representing brands all over the Northwest.

On April 1 of this year, Victory Media merged with MDI Digital, a longtime Spokane marketing company, under the Victory Media banner, a move that accelerated Victory’s growth and capabilities beyond Kuhlmann’s original projections.

“It happened way faster than I thought it would,” he said. “I put myself on a 10-year track to get where we are now. With a lot of favor and luck, we’re at this point.”

Kuhlmann credits his team, who took home a handful of American Advertising Federation Awards in its 2020 competition.

“We want to be the best,” he said. “Even though there are some great agencies out there, we want to be the premier. We want to be the agency people want to work at. We want to be the agency clients want to work with. We want to set the trend.”

Kuhlmann was honored as a 20 Under 40 Award winner in the December issue of Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living, and he deflects a lot of credit to a spot on the map between those two cities.

“I genuinely don’t think it would have happened this fast or with this much support if not for Liberty Lake,” he said.

NOTE: A version of this article first appeared in the 2020 Liberty Lake Yearbook.

Throw Down cancelled for 2020

August 7, 2020
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The second annual Liberty Lake Throw Down, a cornhole tournament that raises support for two of the community’s premier nonprofits, is the latest in a series of COVID event casualties. The event was set to return Aug. 29 to Orchard Park.

Note: The text below was written before the event’s cancellation but sheds light on the nature of and spirit of the Liberty Lake Throw Down. Well received in its inaugural year, organizers hope to see the event return. …

The Throw Down is put on by Friends of Pavillion Park and the HUB Sports Center to raise funds for those two organizations.

For Joe Frank, president and CEO of Greenstone Homes and president of the FOPP board, the tournament is a true celebration of how a community comes together. Since its founding in 1992, FOPP has helped build many Liberty Lake amenities and now focuses on “strengthening the sense of community in Liberty Lake by providing safe and affordable opportunities for recreation, education, entertainment and the arts.”

“When we build communities, our goal is to build a socially connected community, not just a collection of houses,” Frank said of Greenstone. “This social connection is the part of community that is ongoing, even after development is done. FOPP has taken on this role for Liberty Lake, and it is a big reason why Liberty Lake continues to be one of the most desired locations in the region.”

After featuring around 100 teams of two in its inaugural year, the 2020 Throw Down hopes to double to 200 teams this year, Frank said. Team registration is open and sponsorship information is available at pavillionpark.org. Divisions have been added this year to “better help us differentiate between competitive players and social players,” Frank said.

“The 2019 event came off better than I could have ever hoped for,” he said. “Starting a new event, you never know how it will be embraced, but we got a lot of great feedback after last year’s event and we hope to see attendance and support grow in 2020.”

Frank said his personal favorite memory from 2019 was the final from the Mini Bagger Division.

“The championship game was back and forth the whole game, and you had a lot of the adult teams make their way over to this court and cheer on the younger players,” he said. “It was awesome to see.”

NOTE: A version of this article first appeared in the 2020 Liberty Lake Yearbook.

Feature photo from 2019 event courtesy of Victory Media.

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