In Smyrna, we know the places that matter.
They’re not always the newest or the biggest, but they’re the ones where people gather — where friendships form, where children grow up together, where community quietly takes shape. For many families, The Square Church has long been one of those places.
And it didn’t begin with a building.
It began with a living room. Then a garage. Then a minivan that ferried people back and forth from a borrowed parking lot half a mile away.
Long before there was a foyer or a sanctuary, there was a shared conviction — that church could feel like family, and faith could feel like belonging.
That conviction has carried The Square through every season since — from its earliest, most inconvenient beginnings to the doors opening on its new home on Powder Springs Street, where the same words are still being spoken today.
“It still feels like home,” people say.
Before There Was Space, There Were People
“We often joke that The Square was hard to belong to in the beginning,” Lead Pastor Emily Manginelli says with a smile.
They didn’t want to bother neighbors with street parking, so people parked at another church about half a mile away and rode with the Manginelli family in their minivan, affectionately dubbed Square Wheels. If someone needed the bathroom, they walked upstairs from the garage — and when the toilet flushed, everyone could hear the pipes overhead.
There was one plate of cookies. One water carafe. A kids’ ministry made up of two toddlers and two babies — and parents whose ministry role sometimes involved rocking infants to sleep while church was happening.
“It wasn’t easy,” Emily says. “But it was beautiful.”
People didn’t come because it was convenient. They came because they felt known. They came because they felt welcomed. They came because something rare was happening — not polish or programming, but presence.
Phil Manginelli remembers those early days as both disorienting and sacred.
“I had gone from having a church family to having no church family,” he says. “From deep relationships to starting from scratch. And yet, we got to watch a family be born.”
Like most births, it was messy and exhausting and joyful all at once.
Why Smyrna Was Always Home
The Square didn’t land in Smyrna by chance.
Before they ever moved to Georgia, Phil and Emily sensed God calling them to plant a church in Atlanta — but they didn’t yet know where. As Emily studied a map of the city, one zip code kept catching her eye: 30080. She wrote it in her journal and began searching for rental properties only in that area.
Two days later, Phil came to her quietly.
“I was praying and staring at a map,” he recalls, “and it was like the only thing I could see was 30080.”
Emily opened her journal and showed him what she had written days earlier.
“That was the moment,” Phil says. “There were no more conversations. Smyrna was home.”
They explored other parts of the city, but nothing captured their hearts in the same way. There was something about Smyrna — its neighborhoods, its families, its rhythm — that felt like belonging.
Growing Without Losing the Feeling
By 2014, The Square had outgrown the Manginellis’ home and moved into a rundown property on Powder Springs Street — a building that came with mold, asbestos, and rotting floors, but also with a story.
The denomination had nearly sold it years earlier, until a pastor sensed God say, Don’t sell this. It’s a key to the city.
“When they handed us the keys, we knew it was a gift,” Emily says.
The church got to work — repairing, restoring, and slowly filling the space with life. And something remarkable happened.
“As people started visiting, they kept saying the same thing,” Emily remembers. “‘As soon as we walked in, it felt like home.’”
That feeling became sacred — something to protect as the church grew.
“Our tagline is ‘A Church That Loves Jesus,’” Phil says. “We didn’t want to be known for what we did well. We wanted to be known for who we loved.”
At their core, Phil and Emily still see themselves as missionaries — a calling that began overseas and continues today.
“Even when we finally had a building,” Phil says, “we knew it wasn’t for us. It was for the people who hadn’t come yet.”
A New Home, the Same Heartbeat
On December 7, 2025, The Square opened the doors to its new building — a moment years in the making.
“It was surreal,” Emily says. “I had walked through that building so many times during construction — cement, steel, drywall, tile. But the first time it felt finished was when people walked in.”
Suddenly, the building made sense.
“Our mission hasn’t changed,” she says. “This building simply gives more people a place to join it. We’re still a home — we just have a foyer now.”
Phil smiles at the simplicity of it.
“The first Sunday in the garage and the first Sunday here weren’t that different,” he says. “We worship. We pray. We open our Bibles. We love Jesus together.”
What has changed is scale — and responsibility.
“Our city matters,” Phil says. “People deserve to be loved. My prayer is that this building becomes a hospital for our neighbors.”
Built to Linger
Every detail of the new space was designed with intention.
The A-frame architecture mirrors the original chapel, preserving a sense of familiarity. Gothic-style windows nod to historic cathedrals while allowing the community to see worship happening inside — a quiet reminder that faith isn’t hidden.
The wide, light-filled foyer — long dreamed of — has already become the heart of the building.
“For years, we ran multiple services without anywhere to gather,” Emily says. “Now we finally have a place to find one another.”
Café tables invite conversation. Books and board games encourage people to linger. The palette feels calm and grounding — a space that gently says, you can stay.
Emily’s favorite room is deeply personal.
“The nursing mothers’ room,” she says without hesitation. “I wanted women to walk in and think, ‘This is the best seat in the house.’ And yes — there’s chocolate hidden in the women’s bathroom.”
She laughs softly. “Sometimes you just need chocolate.”
A Gift to Smyrna
The Square has long been woven into the fabric of Smyrna — delivering groceries, tutoring students, supporting foster families, and partnering with local schools — often stretching beyond the limits of its space.
“Now we can finally let those ministries grow,” Emily says.
There’s also gratitude running quietly through the story.
“So many churches and schools opened their doors to us over the years,” Phil says. “Now we get to do the same.”
Still Feels Like Home
On opening Sunday, joy settled evenly across the room in a way that felt rare and shared.
“It still feels like home,” people said.
That mattered more than anything.
“Change can be scary,” Emily reflects. “Our hope was always to grow without losing our heart.”
As The Square steps into this next chapter, Phil hopes the building becomes both a landmark and a refuge — a place people reference and a place people run to.
“The Square comes from the idea of a town square,” he explains. “If you want to find people who care about Smyrna — that’s where you go.”
One day, Phil says, he’ll walk into the building and feel the weight of its stories.
“The prayers. The worship. The lives changed,” he says. “That’s when it will really feel complete.”
Because in Smyrna, we know the places that matter — and the ones that last were never built on walls alone.
The Square Church
Sunday Services: 9 & 11 a.m.
Address: 981 Powder Springs St, Smyrna, GA 30080
Phone: (404) 654-3260
Website: www.thesquare.org
Facebook: The Square Church
Instagram: @square.church
YouTube: @TheSquareChurch
“The Square was never built on walls alone. It was built on people.”