Nashville-based chain ‘honored and excited’ to purchase longtime five outlets from Northwestern Book Stores

LifeWay Christian Stores has acquired the Northwestern Book Stores chain of five outlets in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn., area—owned by the Cutshall family for 61 years.

The purchase of Northwestern locations in Coon Rapids, Woodbury, Burnsville, Maple Grove and Edina was completed in August. 

“The folks with Northwestern Book Stores have done an outstanding job of serving the Minneapolis and St. Paul communities,” said LifeWay Christian Stores President Mark Scott. “We’re honored to have the opportunity to work with their dedicated staff and continue their ministry. We’re also excited to offer the people and churches of Minnesota a wide range of biblically based resources.”

Brian Cutshall, president of Northwestern, added: “We’ve operated the Northwestern Book Stores in this area since 1949, and we’re happy to be passing the ministry baton to LifeWay Christian Stores, who has the same heart and desire to serve these communities that we’ve had these many years.”

With the acquisition, LifeWay now operates 162 stores in 27 states. Grand-opening celebrations were scheduled to begin Sept. 11 at all the Minnesota stores.

Owned and operated by Nashville-based LifeWay Christian Resources, LifeWay Christian Stores acquired two Christian Supply stores in Beaverton (Portland), Ore., and Spokane, Wash., earlier this year. That deal was completed April 19, with both stores reopening as LifeWay Christian Stores two days later.

Meanwhile, Family Christian Stores has redesigned its 80,000-square-foot distribution center in Grand Rapids, Mich., with the help of Integrated Systems Group (ISG).

“We were in the process of changing our business model at Family Christian Stores from a predominantly vendor-direct model to a centralized distribution model,” ISG Vice President Gene Pryor said. “We needed help to create the right plan along with the necessary hardware/software to make it happen. We were starting at ground zero, and needed a transition plan to take us from virtually no centralized distribution to a state today, which represents greater than 60% of the goods movement through the Grand Rapids facility.”

ISG officials said that the redesign enabled Family Christian, which has more than 350 stores nationwide, to have a cost-effective packing and shipping system.

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