The Home Away From Home Campaign
Case Statement
"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Jn 14:2
From Pastor Luke Timm:
We all know it’s true: there’s something special about Living Faith church and preschool. I’ve even called it the secret sauce several times in my Sunday morning sermons! That special something, of course, is the Spirit of God doing His work; and that work has been happening despite our constraints of gathering spaces, food prepping and serving capabilities, meeting spaces, preschool classrooms, offices space, youth ministry space, children’s ministry spaces…well, significant facility constraints to say the least! I know when someone new has encountered the secret sauce when they tell me some variant of ‘I don’t know, it just feels like home here.’
Now I want to be clear about this; that special something doesn’t need a new facility to stay special. The Holy Spirit dwells in people, not buildings. This building project has a singular focus: More people more deeply encountering that special something at Living Faith church and preschool.
That means the people already here will have opportunity to grow more deeply in their faith and relationship to their savior Jesus, as well as more people who don’t have that relationship with Jesus yet at all.
Which brings us to the most important thing to remember; This isn’t a building project. It’s a Kingdom project.
We simply can not build a monument to ourselves or a trophy for our mantle. Rather, we must be committed to the works that God our Father has prepared for us as part of his Kingdom by the activity of His Spirit among us to proclaim the risen Jesus.
Faith, not facilities.
Believers, not buildings.
Christians, not kitchens.
Ok, that last one was pushing it. The point is this; what we have at Living Faith is special and it exists regardless of our facilities. Our facility project seeks to expand what we already have.
To that end, the project itself is designed to expand the three areas around which all of our church is already organized: Worship, Discipleship and Service. Our planned project includes:
WORSHIP
Removal of temporary classrooms at the back of the sanctuary to allow our entire community to worship together and even accommodate more people in worship
Addition of family friendly space in the back of the sanctuary for young children
Expansion of Narthex area for times of fellowship
Kitchen facilities and serving area for fellowship opportunities
Rooms for relational style groups and Bible studies on Sunday morning
Rooms for children’s church on Sunday morning during worship
DISCIPLESHIP
Relationally designed rooms for small groups and Bible Studies of all ages throughout the week
Space dedicated for youth ministry
Space dedicated for training of our missionaries, service team and discipleship team
Multi-purpose space for large group Bible studies
Dedicated preschool wing to allow us to connect with twice as many children and families with Little Friends
SERVICE
The large multi-purpose space will allow us to host community events, athletic practices, fellowship events, wedding and funeral receptions, large scale service projects, etc.
The smaller, relationally designed rooms will be used to train leaders and stage service projects
A partnership with Clive to allow use of our remaining green space in a creative way to serve the community
Total Cost
The cost of the project in its’ entirety is estimated at 5.5 million. Yes, that is a lot! However, we do have options at our disposal to help manage that cost.
We will certainly engage in competitive bidding that our Build Team believes will result in a lover the overall estimated cost.
We plan to work with Laborers for Christ (if you have not heard of them, it is worth a google search!) who boast an average of 20-30 percent overall savings on projects like ours.
Depending on how God blesses us in our campaign, we will adopt one of several possible phasing options spreading that cost out over time.
Early data from our business planning for the preschool shows that revenue from the preschool will be able pay for - and potentially exceed - the entirety of the mortgage related to their portion of construction and monthly cost of doing business.
LCEF has and will continue to be a trusted partner in responsible lending that will take into account preschool revenue, capital campaign results and congregational stewardship
Timing
The timing of this project will absolutely depend on the generosity and faithfulness of the people of Living Faith. It well could be a three year, five year or seven year project. It is my firm belief that God has given us the ability to accomplish all this in three years or less if we respond to His challenge in the same way our church has responded to every challenge over the last ten years. Will it take courage? Yes. Will it take trust in our Provider personally and as a congregation? Yes. Will it take discipline, dedication, faith in hard times, patience, endurance and commitment to persevere? Yes. No one is saying this will be easy. We are saying we believe it is worth it.
SUMMARY
We are blessed to have a truly special church that is so welcoming and, frankly, just feels like home. Over the past ten years, we have outgrown that home even as we know there are so many people in our community who feel cast out from church and spiritually homeless. It is really an exciting time at Living Faith as both the Council and the Elders as well as other leaders in our congregation are all in agreement: now is the time to be bold and to be faithful as God calls us to welcome the wanderers in faith and share with them the good news of our Father’s House in eternity. Now is the time to be generous so that we all are able to experience today a preview of our homecoming into eternity. Now is the time to create a sanctuary in which to reside where we can experience the love, grace and mercy we so eagerly await in the life that is to come.
Our Savior Jesus is away preparing for us rooms with a view of the King while calling us to prepare a place for his children to wait with a view to that eternity.
Won’t you join me in building our Home away from Home?
click on the links below for more detailed information:
Excel Spreadsheet of Financials