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Weekly Update from Damascus Road Community Church
February 20 , 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
You are God’s child by the blood-stained Cross of Christ and your faith in Jesus as risen Lord.
Plus nothing else! Period.
So now, in Christ, where, as a congregation, is God calling us?
What’s our target on the wall? Let’s define that target by two phrases:
- BE the church.
- BUILD the church.
Definition 1, verb: To BE, Being: A state of existence; identity, the way one lives. The substance of a life.
BE the church? How do we make being the church the substance of our life?
The most complete answer is the book of Acts in the New Testament, but five bullets capture the essence:
- Gather fresh manna daily (Bible study and prayer)
- Enjoy and create community (Be a friend, have a friend)
- Serve (God designed you and saved you for helping others [Ephesians 2:10])
- Share with seeking friends the ups and downs of your God-journey (Invest/invite)
- Stay available to God (Do the next right thing)
Definition 2, verb: To BUILD, Building: To gradually form by ordering and uniting materials into a composite whole: to develop or construct according to a systematic plan and process on a particular base.
Building a ‘Light on a Hill’ home-base is our legacy.
To recap in bullets, here is where we are in developing our new facility:
- Phase one is a 23,000 square foot facility
(see blueprint and budget for phase one and phase 2-3 footprint by clicking on this link: www.damascus.com/resources/index.html
- Our overall budget for phase one is $7 million.
This includes land cost, facility construction and furnishing, land prep, roads, landscaping, parking.
- The first $1 million of this $7 million budget is completed—our land is paid for.
- Approximately $100,000 in prep costs (architecture fees, civil engineering, etc) is completed.
- We have received approximately $1,140,000 in pledges in the past 14 months.
- Our three-year pledge total is $3,040,000. Together with the completed land purchase ($1 M) and completed prep work ($100 K) this would bring our raised-funds total to approximately $4.14 million.
- We plan to finance approximately $2.86 million.
We are in the “Second Mile” phase of our campaign:
- To all our systematic, sacrificial givers, our Ring-bearers: Thank you! Your giving is fueling this goal. Keep trusting and moving forward. God called us to our commitments in prayer. He is faithful.
- To consider joining this circle of systematic givers: on March 3 (Monday evening at 7:00 p.m.) and March 6 (Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m.) there will be two identical “fireside chat” vision-casting meetings about this project. Paul Foss and I will lead these discussions. There will be plenty of time for Q. and A. in the more intimate setting of a home. Please come and consider being a part of this God-story. You can sign up for one of these fireside chats by e-mailing Erin Berry.
Where God guides, He provides—and we are the rivers He will pour the resources through as we trust. As our “ring-bearers” have done, I invite you to prayerfully find your part in following God’s heart to our future. God isn’t asking for one level of equal giving, but for equal sacrifice according to our means. Thanks for being the church. Richard
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