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If you want to understand the soul of a place of worship, look for the doors that are wide open.

Not just on Sunday.

But EVERY day of the week.

In American Fork, one congregation is pushing those doors open wide—turning a church building into a sanctuary for child care, mentorship, and ultimately mercy. It’s a story with lessons for all of us, whatever pew (or seat, or prayer rug) we favor.

Pastor Joe McCormick (raised in Orange County, shaped by mission work, and now being seasoned through his work at Calvary Mountain View Church) describes his turning point this way: “Am I giving to God what comes from comfort and convenience—or courage and conviction?”

That question uprooted him from close proximity to parents and in-laws in Southern California and planted him, with his young family, in Utah County in 2003. The move came after years of global ministry in Cuba (where he saw churches thriving on micro-economies that dignified work including building clinics and schools), and continued when he moved to Utah Valley as he continued outreach to larger areas in Latin America, Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe.

Utah was beautiful. Calvary Mountain View Church was an incredible location for Joe and his family. Joe’s early years here included facilitated conversations at BYU with Latter-day Saint faculty and students. That practice—listening outside one’s echo chamber—became a template for everything that followed. Interfaith work, as he puts it, is “to build relationships with [others] and build trust so they’ll choose to let us have more involvement.”

Today, Joe’s church is pursuing a three-part vision that feels both elevatedly entrepreneurial and consummately Christian: care for neighbors, welcome the stranger, and teach the young how to flourish.



Leveraging the Sacred Space

Many church buildings and campuses hum at a fever pitch on Sundays and sit idle the other days of the week.

Joe asked a taboo question: What if the building paid for the ministry?

  • Child care came first. The church launched MK Daycare, fully licensed, open 7 a.m.–7 p.m., with capacity for children with special needs and access to state subsidies that, in many cases, reduce costs to “all but $50” for families. It’s a real service in a county where demand outstrips supply—and it situates the church as a weekday neighbor and good community actor, not merely a once-a-week tenant.
  • A coffee shop and neutral event venue are next—not to “commercialize the sacred,” but to meet real community needs and diversify income. In a valley with premium demand for gathering space, a well-run venue can become both a welcome mat for community members as well as a significant revenue stream.

For those uncomfortable with commerce and church coexisting, Joe’s answer is practical and pastoral: if a building can host Sunday worship, why can’t it host Monday–Saturday solutions as well?

“We’re not trying to do karaoke nights in the sanctuary,” he jokes. “If we have classrooms for kids, why not a school? If we have a café on Sundays, why not a shop that serves the community all week?”

“Houses of Hope” for Families and Youth

Don’t mistake Joe’s vision; revenue isn’t the end–it’s the water that nourishes the fields that eventually feed the sheep.

The church is channeling proceeds toward three concrete projects:

  • Twin Homes for Families in Crisis. Rather than writing one-off rent checks that disappear into a hole, the church aims to provide 3–12 months of low- or no-cost housing, coupled with financial coaching and job-skill support, so families leave stronger than they arrived. And given Utah’s need for housing, this is welcomed (and needed).
  • Women’s and men’s “Houses of Hope” where 18–20-year-olds aging out of juvenile facilities can stay for up to two years.. Here, the model looks like Big Brother/Big Sister meets life-skills boot camp. Skills provided include budgeting, cooking, showing up for work, and navigating conflict. Sure, it may not be flashy—“small bunts and singles,” Joe says—but it’s needed..

    One young man who connected with a mentor inside a facility now attends church with his parents, both of whom embraced faith after watching their son’s incredible transformation.
  • Joe knows recidivism is stubborn. “It’s a process,” he says. “Some of these young people rise and fall before they really stand on their feet. Because we’re not a government program, we can re-admit and keep walking with them.” 

Disaster Relief and the Callings of Veterans

Joe’s vision, and the third pillar of the master plan we discussed, pairs disaster response with veteran purpose. Joe wants to outfit an all-terrain van and mobilize trained teams to tornado zones, hurricane coasts, and earthquake areas.

The idea is pastoral as well as tactical: repurpose the skills of combat veterans, who face alarming suicide rates, and put them to work saving lives again—this time in neighborhoods flattened by disaster.

Community and Camaraderie by Design

If you’re a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah County, you may be used to seeing your church carry the largest share of the social burden in the community.

Joe’s story is a reminder—welcome and overdue—that the Body of Christ is bigger than any single congregation or denomination. “We’re part of the same civic community,” Joe says. “This isn’t something one church—or one family—can solve alone.”

That’s the genius of this model. It invites an entire civic ecosystem—Latter-day Saint, evangelical, unaffiliated, friends of other faiths, whoever loves this beautiful place nestled among the Wasatch Front—to pick up a corner and carry the load together. 

You don’t have to share Joe’s theology to recognize the good in this effort: less isolation, more dignity; fewer one-off checks, more long-term (and lasting) lift. If your faith tradition values family, self-reliance, and redemption, these principles are part of your story.

And if you live anywhere near American Fork, the invitation is simple: tour the daycare, buy a drink, offer a skill, volunteer to partner on an upcoming class, or help outfit that disaster-relief van. And from anywhere in the world, you can always request a prayer.

Faith, after all, is most exercised and felt when the doors are open and it is lived, each and every day of the week.