• By RJ Walters, Editor •Arise Church has gone to the dogs and the Rev. Don Weatherup couldn’t be more excited about it.
More than 300 canines and 500 people celebrated the grand opening of the Arise Church Community Dog Park June 11 on the church’s 20-acre property in Pinckney — the validating fruits of a Weatherup family brainstorm a few years ago.
The free public park that did not use a single penny of the church’s budget and relied on community donations to get started was a conversation that started when Weatherup and his wife began driving their three dogs roughly 20 miles to Saline to the nearest dog park.
“I noticed that while we were at the dog park my wife did a fair amount of talking and she is extremely shy,” Weatherup said. “And my daughter had actually mentioned to me at one point that we should build a dog park.”
He said that her suggestion was focused on the convenience it would provide the family, but after watching his wife interact with fellow dog owners Weatherup saw a ministry connection to the project.
“I was like, wait, we have tons of property, there isn’t a dog park in the area obviously because we’re driving a while to get to one and if we built a dog park…dogs do their things and there’s not much else to do so you just naturally start up a conversation,” he said. “The best way we have a chance of getting people to come to worship or into Bible study or a small group is through relationships, so here’s an opportunity for us.”
That opportunity has turned into a full-fledged public facility that is fully fenced in, has lumber posts, a wading pool for the dogs and waterline.
Weatherup up said donations continue to trickle in from local businesses and dog owners and the church would like to build a gazebo in the near future.
He added that process has certainly had many spiritual components.
“Karen Vaden is the church person of our dog park task force and she is a really good shopper. She got online and started searching for used materials and she actually found a farmer in Fowlerville who had four 320-foot rolls of brand new fencing,” he said. “We bought them from him for pennies on the dollar and it was exactly the amount of fencing we needed, so we saw God all throughout the process.”
Weatherup admits it was exhilarating to see so many people on church property for the grand opening that took place almost a year after the dog park first opened.
Local pet businesses had items for sale at the event and there were disc dog and hunting dog demonstrations, but Weatherup was most thrilled about simply seeing people come together for a common cause.
He said people have been very grateful for the park and many un-churched people have told him if they ever decide to “give church a try, Arise would be the place they would come.”
If the concept of a dog park at a church sounds out of the ordinary, it’s because it is.
“I knew it was a fairly unique idea when I called Church Mutual — the largest insurer of churches (in the U.S.) — and when I asked them some questions about building a dog park they said, ‘We insure 40,000 churches and we’ve never heard that question,’” Weatherup said.
Online research shows that Michigan is home to at least several dozen dog parks, but Weatherup said he’s only been able to find two parks around the country that are run by churches.
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