In 2007, Jenny Mechtel wrote a prayer to God asking him to save her marriage with her husband.

It was a last-ditch effort for Jenny, whose faith and marriage were in shambles. She and her husband Dan had separated. For several years, their marriage had been going downhill; it was only a matter of time before the pair filed for divorce.

Mechtel, who had turned her back on religion years ago, didn’t expect her prayer to be answered. Nor did she expect the answer to be High Point Church, where she and Dan had been attending services for less than a year.

Jenny and Dan are just two of many people who have found spiritual aid at High Point, a young, unorthodox church that holds its contemporary services inside the  Showplace movie theater on Bishop Drive in Inver Grove Heights.

On Sunday, the church celebrated its fifth anniversary during its service with singing, conversation and a series of special announcements made by lead pastor Tory Farina.

Farina and his wife, Elizabeth, founded High Point in Inver Grove Heights five years ago. Affiliated with Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, High Point had just 30 core members when the church began in 2006. Now, roughly 250 people regularly attend the church services, Farina said.

Since the beginning, the close-knit church has intentionally sought out people like the Mechtels — young married couples or 20-somethings who were disillusioned with church — and working with them to restore their faith, Farina said.

It’s a mission that is personally important for the Farinas, who both grew up with parents who were ministers. Employed in North Carolina prior to the foundation of High Point, Tory Farina, 30, met and worked with many who felt alienated or frustrated with faith.

“It just hit me that if these people would just grab a hold of what god has given for them…if they would do that, then their lives would be dramatically different,” Farina said.

To help people rediscover their faith, the church focuses on three principals: “Find your place, develop your faith and live your potential.”

But the church isn’t only for young people who have had difficulty with their faith.

Take Stan Stone for example. Longtime friends of the Farinas, Stone allowed Tory and Elizabeth to hold High Point services in a building he owns before the church found a home in the Showplace movie theater.

Stone and his wife attended services at the same St. Paul church for more than 50 years, but the energy of Tory’s sermons and High Point’s community drew them in, he said. Now, Stone is a deacon at High Point, and frequently hosts church-related activities at his home in Woodbury.

While the first five years of the church have been defined by its efforts to become established, the next five years are about expansion in services and membership, Farina said. The church just hired a youth pastor to strengthen its youth programming, Farina said. High Point is also looking for a more permanent home than the small office on Blackshire Path that it currently occupies — a move that will involve plenty of fundraising, Farina said. Finally, the church will be refining its internal structure and working to increase the number of mission trips it sponsors.

 “Long term, I want to be a church that affects things in the community,” said Farina. “The future for us is about expanding our effectiveness, doing what we do better.”

That’s good news for members like Jenny Mechtel, who celebrates her eighth anniversary with her husband in June. High Point connected Jenny and her husband with they support they needed to sort out their marriage, she said, and helped both of them renew their faith. Overcome with emotion, Jenny cried throughout High Point’s fifth anniversary service on Sunday.

“I’m so thankful that I’m on this side of the last five years,” she said Sunday evening. “With help of High Point and my church family, I’ve been able to walk the path that God has for me.”