SEVEN FIELDS — Starting a church in a place that's dedicated to the body rather than the spirit might sound peculiar.

But the Rev. Nathan Snode, who hopes to hold the first service of his Lifeway Baptist Church on April 22 in the aerobics studio of the Fitness Factory, 671 Castle Creek Drive, doesn't find it all that farfetched.

“There's a connection between physical health and spiritual health,” he said.

“You know that physically you need improvement, you need help,” Snode said. “You can't continue on the same path and end up where you want to end up.

“And spiritually, it is the same way. The Bible is clear that we are all sinners and that sin separates us from the Holy God,” said Snode, who graduated from Crown College of the Bible in Knoxville, Tenn.

“Secondly, you have got to come to somebody who can help you. On the physical side, you need to come to a gym, a trainer that knows how to help you, what solution you are looking for,” he said.

“The spiritual side is twofold. You have to come to a church or a pastor who can instruct and guide you,” Snode said.

“The second part is the one who can help is Christ the Lord. He is the only one that can give you the change of life that you are looking for. He is the only one that can bridge the gap from sinful man to Holy God,” he said.

For the last 15 months, the 28-year-old Snode must have felt like he's been on a gym treadmill himself.

Snode said he has visited 70 to 80 churches in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Indiana to raise support for his church.

At each stop, Snode gave a presentation of his ministry and his plans for Lifeway. Ultimately, 35 churches banded together to support Snode and his family: wife Sheila; daughter Addison, 3; and son Jackson, 6 months.

“I have no outside job,” said the Carollton, Ohio, native. “That will give me the time to devote to the church as needed. We are less than a month and a half to start, so there are a lot of details.”

Some of those details will be covered by what Snode called Lifeway's mother church, Harvest Baptist Church in Natrona Heights.

Harvest's pastor, the Rev. Kurt Skelly, met Snode, then assistant pastor at the Carollton Baptist Temple, at a youth camp in Indiana in 2010, an encounter that led to Snode and his family moving to Pennsylvania in September, 2011.

“He was telling me he wanted to start a church,” said Skelly. “And I told him he should consider moving to Pennsylvania.”

Snode said Skelly had noticed greater numbers of Harvest's membership were coming from the Cranberry Township/Mars/Seven Fields/Wexford area.

“Basically he had watched this area grow and had an understanding there wasn't a large Baptist influence,” said Snode. “Congregants at his church were driving 45 minutes to an hour, so it was hard for them to get involved.”

“We felt there would be a need for our style of ministry over there,” said Skelly. “We are a Bible-preaching church that's conservative but relevant.”

Skelly said his church helps Snode with finances and provides other aid to help get the fledgling church on its feet.

It was while searching for a place to set up his church that Snode met with Steve Duckworth, the owner of the Fitness Factory.

“We were looking for a building that was available and affordable in this area. Basically, he had a sign out ‘For Lease,'” said Snode. “He had been praying that God would use this facility for a spiritual purpose.”

Duckworth said, “I built the new building next to the existing building, and there was a space that was empty there, he came to me to rent it.”

Duckworth said he suggested instead the newly renovated aerobics studio in the Fitness Factory.

“I thought it would be a better fit. With the aerobics space, you wouldn't have to lease it every day of the month,” said Duckworth.

“I had been praying that I would be able to help start a church in some way, said Duckworth, who attended a Southern Baptist church while growing up in Phoenix.

Snode subleases the space from Jazzercize, which renovated the space and leases it from Duckworth.

“We can seat 100,” said Snode. “We've got a nursery around the corner and another room we can use for our Thursday night Bible study and maybe as a Sunday school down the road.”

Initial plans call for one service at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays and a prayer meeting at 7 p.m. Thursdays at the Fitness Factory.

To publicize his startup church and its April 22 opening, Snode said a booklet with Scripture will be placed in door-hanging bags that will go onto doors at the end of March in Cranberry, Seven Fields and Mars.

Members from 15 to 20 Baptist churches are coming to help with that project, he said.

Snode said he also is counting on word of mouth, and there will be some advertising through newspapers and yard signs and a sign will be placed on the front of the Fitness Factory.

He's also planning get-acquainted meetings at Rowan Elementary School, 8051 Rowan Road, Cranberry Township, starting at 7 p.m. April 15 through 19.

“It will be a meet-and-greet time. People can get to know us and we can get to know them,” said Snode

Snode has been working toward that opening for two years now. He's been discouraged now and again, he said, but never enough to stop.

“I feel pretty good. We've been working at it a long time. We've been working at it every day,” he said. “I feel pretty confident that the Lord is going to do something special here in Cranberry.”

Asked if he's got his first sermon written, Snode said he's got a few ideas.

“I want it to be a sermon on vision, but I haven't settled on a particular text yet. You want people to see where God's going to lead us,” he said.

As for music, Snode said the mother church in Natrona Heights will provide families to help out with music, nursery attendants and ushers.

“Start with momentum,” said Snode. “That's the thought behind the music and the get-acquainted meetings, to have a crowd here and have the momentum going from your first Sunday. You can only start once.”