Following God's Heart to Our Future

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Does leadership advocate borrowing to fund the building of our new church?
   Absolutely, unequivocally NO! End of story.
   An Update was sent out that talked about the potential of taking equity out of your home as a way of front loading your giving. This would not be creating debt; it would be leveraging an asset. There are three times in life we believe we should sacrifice assets: to buy or build your home, to fund your children’s education and to build a congregational home (read Haggai, the shortest book in the Old Testament [takes six minutes], for God’s perspective on assets and priorities). For the last 10+ years the teaching and biblically based philosophy of Damascus Road Community church have been about simplifying our lifestyles as a way to eliminate personal debt. If that teaching hasn’t found its way into your personal spending habits yet we would love to resource you with budget counseling and advice. Send either Eric Closs or Paul Foss an email or letter and we will see to it that we provide you with the resources you need.
2. Shouldn’t we be putting the money we are spending on the capital campaign into the building fund?
   
   • Our elected leadership – the Trustees – spent a significant amount of time investigating the various ways and means of resourcing our congregation during this stretch. After much deliberation this is the option they selected. We need to honor the leadership we have put in place to help us make these kinds of decisions.
   • Having said that, we are being VERY careful as faithful stewards in the way we are spending our money. One of the expenses is a banquet we are holding on November 19 to provide a time and place for the leadership of the church to declare what God has revealed to them is their role in this campaign. This is modeled after the method King David used to build the temple in 1 Chronicles 28 & 29. The place we selected was VERY competitive to other options considered thanks to Rajendra and our past relationship with Dutch’s Daughter.
   • With INJOY’s help we are learning how to create consensus, cast vision, and communicate in a way that will maintain the unity of the Body and help us to keep the main thing the main thing.
3. Do we really need to spend 8 million dollars on our church? Shouldn’t we just give this money to the poor?
• One million plus of that amount was God’s gift to us through Dick White’s original land gift. That whole land story is a clear indicator that God cares about our home base for ministry. So we began this campaign almost 20% of the way toward our total goal with our land completely paid for.
• The development committee spent years investigating both land and alternative meeting place options. This process was communicated well to our congregation in a variety of ways. After spending literally weeks and months this highly competent group of leaders finally recommended that we temporarily move back into the high school.
• When God lead us to the land we as a congregation unanimously agreed by vote that this was going to be our new home. Following our vote our development committee did a through job of investigating what type of facility could be built quickly to satisfy our current ministry and congregational requirements. They then factored in where the leadership saw our future needs and attempted to balance the current realities with those future needs. The resulting size and scope is what lead us to this cost.
• In fact we are giving this money to the poor by building a place we can launch rescue missions to poor. Our Light on a Hill will be a place we can welcome both the physically and spiritually impoverished, to come and be filled. It will be our place to equip and resource all economic levels, including those who are on the margins, in a way that will allow them to go back to their neighborhoods and win one more for Jesus.
4. Couldn’t we save money by building the church ourselves? We built the shopping center that created enormous ownership and community!
• Because of the busyness of life the time it would take to build the church would probably even be more costly. Every month we are in the High School has a direct cost to our budget; and constructing a building of this scope is incredibly complex at every level.
• In addition, we as leadership are determined to keep the main thing the main thing. In that light, it is not best to invest our limited volunteer time attempting to build a building when there are lost people to be won and ministries to build (the real “temple” of God).
• King David saw the wisdom of having the workers build the temple after the people had given what they already had. We agree with this biblical wisdom.
5. Do we really need one more church in the Mt Airy – New Market – Frederick corridor?
   If we don’t feel like we have a unique mission to our region than the answer is a resounding NO. Damascus Road offers a special vision that we believe our friends and neighbors are dying to hear.  That vision involves creating homes of light to push back the darkness that is all around us. We are a church which believes:
• That our children are a priority in the Kingdom. We agree that by teaching our children we will create a legacy of mature, passionate followers of Jesus.
• We believe that Men need to be taught how to move into their destiny. This destiny is to be the spiritual leaders in their homes and to advance the Kingdom as warriors of God by serving all those in need, even those on the margins of society.
• We see the ‘special needs’ community as important and valued. We are committed to providing the resources needed to create a safe place for these families to experience grace and love first-hand.
• With a long legacy of commitment to missions, both home and aboard we see our role expanding with our main focus being Honduras, South Africa, and India. Much has been done and much remains to be done for the Kingdom.
6. What does sacrificial mean?
   In every family of our church this will mean something different. Sacrifice is giving up something you greatly value for something you love even more. Sacrifice generally hurts, but God always does His greatest work through sacrifice. Sacrifice calls us to surrender some ways we currently spend our money in order to be able to do something for the Kingdom. It means looking at our assets and remembering that it all belongs to God. It involves looking at the story of the rich young ruler and making that application personal. The application would look different for each of us, but the application applies to each of us, no matter where our net worth currently is. Show me what you do with $10 and I will show you what you would do with a $1,000.000.
7. What if a husband and wife have prayerfully come to different giving levels for the new church?
   This decision MUST be unity building and God honoring. This building campaign MUST not create division in our homes of light. If you reach a place where you are stuck, then agree to pray together intentionally every day giving time for the Spirit to do a work in each of you. Don’t pray as a continuation of the debate, pray for God to reveal His perfect plan and will. God will not lead you to a comfortable place, but He will lead you to a place of unity. We recommend that each spouse give the other spouse a veto vote in this matter. In other words, the amount committed should be mutual. Let this be a time of seeking God’s face and building intimacy in your marriage.
8. What is my ‘fair share’?
   The beauty of the Kingdom is your ‘fair share’ is based on how much of God’s resources He has entrusted you with. To whom much has been given, much is expected; and likewise, he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. The key is unity in a spirit of sacrifice. In Acts it says that all shared everything they had. Then it says that there were no needy persons among them. The Kingdom principle revealed in 1 Chronicles 28 & 29 is that all who gave did so willingly. The God who revealed to the Children of Israel their ‘fair share’ is alive and well today. Second Corinthians 8 and 9 offer a clear New Testament perspective and promise on giving sacrificially.
9. Do you have any ideas on how we can help our kids participate in this campaign?
   That is a GREAT question! Our children’s ministry team has launched a ‘change for our future’ initiative. This allows our kids to both rescue your change as well as make choices that will allow them to give themselves – allowance money; babysitting money; chores around the house; etc. In addition to this the curriculum for the next several weeks is being tailored so our kids will be made aware of character issues like – sharing; placing our treasures in the Kingdom; etc. If you hear of a great idea beyond this PLEASE let us know and we will share those ideas in updates and handouts.
10. How about ideas for our Life group? What can we do together as a Life group during this time?
    First Rajendra has given us a focused curriculum for this stretch to help us see clearly that this whole campaign is really an ownership and trusting issue. God is the owner and we are just the stewards of all our possessions. God is faithful to take care of our needs as we are faithful to obey. God’s blessing is not always more money. But it is always the freedom of knowing that we are in the middle of His care and that the God of the universe will work for good in every situation we find ourselves.