The Process

It is surprising how many steps a church must go through to explore a building expansion before the first shovel full of dirt is ever moved. It has been a while since we've had to do this at Grace, so I'd like to share with you about what's been going on behind the scenes as we've labored through this process.

Our first step was to assess our ministry need for more space. Then we began to work on plans to address our space needs. Next, we knew we would need to determine the amount of financial resources needed to meet these needs. Once all these steps are completed, the elders will then need to consider all of this information and make a recommendation to the congregation for discussion and a congregational vote.

We've essentially completed the first step. The elders and staff worked very hard on this space assessment, and evaluating our space needs for ministry has not been terribly difficult. A simple walk through our church-house on any given Sunday reveals the need. And you confirmed that need through your responses in our recent survey.

To help us with building design and concept, we've hired architects to lay out a very general plan to give us an idea of what we can build to address our present and future space needs. We'll be sharing those initial plans in the coming weeks.

We're in the midst of the third part right now, assessing our financial resources for meeting our ministry needs through building expansion. We're calling it Building His Church. The catchphrase Building His Church was chosen because our desire is to expand our church-house (build His church) so that we can build the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I described the work of those involved in Building His Church in the last newsletter. Suffice it to say that we hope we will be able to supply all the information that you need to be able to go before the Lord to discern the financial commitment for you to make that would be pleasing to Him. December 7, 2008, will be our commitment Sunday. On this day we'll ask you to return a faith promise card that will indicate your giving intentions to the building fund for the next three years.

The elders of Grace will then receive the information from the faith promise cards and spend time seeking the Lord for His will concerning how we should proceed. It is likely that the elders will also go back to the architects at this point to refine their work. Then the elders will bring a recommendation to the congregation for consideration. This recommendation will include what the elders believe that we should build at this time and how we should finance it. The congretation will then have the opportunity through "Family Meetings" to consider this recommendation, refine it if necessary, and then vote.

In summary, our process looks like this:

• Assess the ministry need -- done.

• Address the need -- in process with architect, to be completed in two phases. The first a very rough layout of what we could build. The second, a detailed layout that will accompany the elders' recommendation.

• Assess our financial resources -- in process through Building His Church, to be finished on December 7 with our commitment Sunday.

• Recommendation from the elders regarding what we should build and how we will finance it.

• Consideration of the elders' recommendation and congregational vote.

It is very important that each of us participates in the events planned by our Building His Church Event's Team. During these times elders, members of the building team, and I will be providing information and listening to you so that we'll have everything ready for you for you to turn in your faith promise cards on December 7, 2008.

And it is very important that you pray. Our Prayer Team has written a prayer to help guide us as we go before the Lord (see Prayer is the Foundation above). We ask that you use this prayer to inform your praying for this very important time in the life of our church. It is our desire that we neither move ahead of the Lord nor behind, but that we keep in step with the Spirit throughout this process.