Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
February 23 , 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s time for an Update on our new facility and the process we’re in. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.
First, indulge a sentence of honoring the team that has brought us this far. The Development Team is so professional, thorough, diverse and careful. Their wisdom and areas of expertise are a joy in my life.
We met on Monday evening for a long session and looked at a footprint plan (exterior building outline and building placement as well as proposed parking lots) prepared by Lee Miller, our Civil Engineer, based on the preliminary architectural drawings. Our first (easy) decision was to definitely invest, when the design stage is more complete, in a CAD-DVD from the award-winning graphics department of Building God’s Way that will offer us all a simulated tour of our future finished new campus, beginning from the exterior by coming up the landscaped road to our building, then going into the interior and offering a guided tour. We saw such tours from several other churches and it is so exciting. We can copy this DVD for members and play it on a large monitor in our DHS lobby each week for visitors, so they can catch the excitement of our future.
The most significant question came next: what size building can we afford?
That question will ultimately be answered in three steps:
1. First the Dev Team is wrestling to the ground every perspective we can find on this question (our growing ministry needs, current and future construction costs, bank financing). Then we will go into a season of fasting and prayer before coming together in several weeks for a final review and making our recommendation to the Trustees.
2. Second, the Trustees will go over material and make their recommendation to our congregation.
3. Third, those who are covenant members will have opportunity to discuss the plan with the Development Team in an open meeting and then vote. This will all need to be finished by early April, which is when we should finalize our submission of a footprint to Frederick County.
I have great confidence about two things in this process.
· First, the majority of our congregation united in prayerfully/ sacrificially finding our part in following God’s heart to our future. I honor all the “ring-bearers” in this body who vowed and already began to fulfill their vows to build our Light on a Hill. To date we are well over $500,000 in pledge-fulfillment since December 10. To each “ring-bearer” I would echo the heart of Jesus to the faithful in Revelation 2-3: I lay no other burden on you, only hold fast to what you have determined.
· Second, where God guides, He provides. As we seek to steward your God-guided giving we need to trust that God has provided us what we need to go where He is guiding. We will build for quality, beauty, simplicity and usability, based on accurate projections, trusting the faithfulness of this congregation. We will make sure our construction estimates (based on multiple comparables with cost escalation) are complete and our financial calculations are as precise as we can project at this time.
As soon as possible we will have a table in the foyer that is about our future facility. It will include a graphic-design chart that tracks our pledge fulfillment (soon); next a final footprint and interior wall plan (by late Spring) and finally our simulated tour on a large screen (hopefully by late summer).
The permit process with the County is beginning now and usually takes between 12-14 months. Next comes the construction stage that takes 14-18 months. Your head is probably numb right now, so let me conclude by saying I love your heart to follow Jesus.
In His grace,
Richard
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