The Great Lakes Church, ousted from Nash Elementary School after sending out a controversial “Thank God for Sex” flier, has found a new home.

The Rev. Dave Nelson said the church will meet for 9 and 10:30 a.m. services every Sunday at the Tinseltown movie theater, 7101 70th Court, and plans to go forward on its five-week series on sex, pornography and virginity.

The church initially rented space once a month at Mahone Middle School before moving to Nash last month. Nelson said word of mouth grew the church from about 250 to 300 when he sent out the flier to 50,000 people in the Kenosha area.

Nelson said he started a similar church in Seattle at a public school, used a similar flier, and it wasn’t an issue.

He met Monday morning with Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Joe Mangi to discuss the issue.

“I honestly felt very good about the meeting,” Nelson said. “Dr. Mangi is very easy to talk to, and he brought a lot of clarity to the situation. Prior to talking with him, the only conversation I had from the district was we were booted because the advertisement was lewd, pornographic or vulgar material. He said they got dozens of phone calls and that was why (the permit was canceled). We’ve received a lot of feedback, and it has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Mangi said he reiterated the school district’s stance at the meeting that the flier caused too much disruption, and stands by the initial decision.

“We emphasized our policy, and he explained his point of view that he wasn’t doing this to get publicity,” Mangi said. “But what might be acceptable on the west coast or the state of Washington is not acceptable in Kenosha. Community values vary from state to state, as well as school district values.

“As a district, we are not in a position to prejudge people or guess what their intentions are,” Mangi added. “We can only go by what was in the flier and what was printed. That’s what parents saw; that’s what citizens read, and that resulted in degrees from concern to outrage. In retrospect, we did exactly the right thing. We had to take a stand. This was not about to die down.”

Nelson said he wanted the advertisement to draw people to church who don’t normally attend. His sermons, he said, are based on Biblical scripture.

After Unified canceled the permit late last week, the church moved to the Brat Stop last Sunday where, Nelson said, 362 people attended the service. He hopes to be at the Tinseltown location for at six months to a year.

“There’s no denying I’m disappointed (in losing the Unified permit), and it definitely left us scrambling to pull off our upcoming weekend, but we’ll make it,” Nelson said. “Our motto was, ‘No perfect people allowed,’ but maybe we’ll change it to, ‘Only smart people allowed,’ because you have to be smart to keep finding our new location. We’re going to have fun with this.

“Sometimes when Christians disagree with others, they can be the most vocal in making their point known if they are offended,” he said. “The vast majority of young adults don’t go to church. And based on that statistic, we’re going to continue to tackle topics that challenge us.”