After more than three years of itinerant status, the Church on the Ranch has found a new home, although not on Flying W Ranch.

Started in May 2008, the church called the beloved Flying W Ranch home until June 2012, when the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed the ranch. Since then, the church met for a year or so at Norris-Penrose Event Center and then spent two years meeting at a building on Coronado High School’s campus, said pastor Scotty Vaughn. But the high school location left the church without weekday space for Bible studies.

“It kind of reached the point where we really needed a new place,” Vaughn said.

At last, with the help of saved church funds for a down payment, the congregation purchased a building at 3685 Jeannine Drive, on the east side of Palmer Park and far from its original west side home. Vaughn always had hoped that the church would return to the Flying W, although rebuilding attempts on the denuded ranch site have been stalled by flash flooding concerns off the Waldo Canyon fire burn scar.

Nonetheless, the church group made their new home in the model of the old one. Church members put a new facade on the building and built a bell tower. When the church opened for service last Sunday, the first in the new building, Russ Wolfe, owner of the Flying W and a longtime church member, rang the new bell, Vaughn said.

“Basically, we got it from God,” Vaughn said of the new building. “There was really no explanation for our church being here other than the grace of God.”