Grace Campus Update - Part 1

Hey, Grace’rs, Few things energize and/or de-energize a congregation more than building projects.  In more than 24 years of ministry I’ve had the chance to talk with several pastors over the years who have been involved in building projects.  I’ve learned that some projects rally the congregation.  Others tear apart congregations. I’ve been personally involved in several building projects as a pastor, but this is my first as a Senior Pastor.  And I can honestly tell you that this whole process has really been exciting, stimulating, inspiring, energizing, and fun.  That’s not to say there haven’t been some frustrations along the way.  From the beginning, however, when the land was first given to us, I assumed that this is God’s dream for us and he will make it happen- in his time. Unlike the overwhelming majority of new congregations, we began our church knowing that we would probably be given 9.5 acres of land.  So almost since our congregation was birthed we have been dreaming about our new campus.  The upside is that we have the land free and clear enabling us to spend our building fund on buildings.  The downside is that our identity is still being formed as a congregation which makes it interesting, to say the least, to figure out what kind of buildings we need to carry out our mission.  Most congregations don’t build for years after forming, giving them a chance to form first, then build.  For us, it’s like buying clothes for our wedding day when we are only 4 years old.  But...we’ve never done anything the normal way.  From the beginning we had certain values in place to shape our new campus: To the best of our ability be "green" To design a campus that didn’t sit empty but that was utilized most hours of most days To design a campus that drew people into our mission through "side doors" (see next paragraph) To build a campus that enabled us to carry out our mission of discipling each other in order to follow Jesus back out again on the bold, daring, reckless adventure of bringing grace to the world To keep it simple, significant, and fun With that in mind, we created a master plan that would enable "side doors" to use our campus to reach out into the community and draw the community in- "side doors" that would keep our buildings in use (and, as an added benefit, might help in paying the mortgage).  Those "side doors" included a Christian preschool that the church could use as a nursery/pre-k on weekends.  We included a charter school that the church could use for Grace Adventure Club, VBS, etc.  Rather than designing a worship-only building we designed a santu-gymna-café-torium that would be used for worship but that could also be used during the week by the Charter School, basketball teams, etc.  Recently we began discussions with the YMCA to see if we might partner with them on our campus. Through all of this the leadership of your congregation has been prayerfully listening to God’s Spirit.  We essentially said that we will keep on going with this plan until it’s built or until God shuts the door and invites us to re-focus. In the last few weeks several things happened almost at once that have caused us to step back and re-think some of our values and assumptions in creating our master plan: The quickly inflating budget.  Early on our first phase was estimated at $8-9 million!  We worked hard and got that down to just...just...$6.5 million.  And while I’ve not been worried about our ability to handle a $6 million debt (we’ll only finance $6 mill and pay the other $500,000 in cash leading up to the loan) that size of debt will set the agenda for years to come.  $43,000 per month is no small responsibility!  Then, a few weeks ago, we found out that we are currently about $600,000 over budget as a result of: making the changes requested of us by the city; rising fuel/building prices; and A barely manageable budget is now quickly running out of control.  And we have a commitment to each other to not get ourselves into financial trouble.  So, we’re being forced to do some serious re-evaluating of what we want to accomplish in the first phase.  (Our challenge- we’re too big as a congregation to build the typical first phase/unit, which is usually pretty small.  We’re not big enough to really build what we’d like/need in the current first phase.) We just learned that a new K-6 grade charter school is being built about ½ mile from us (on about Pinnacle Peak and Lake Pleasant Rd).  With Zuni ½ mile from us and this new charter school ½ mile from our property coupled with the slow down in housing starts, I’m not as convinced of the need for another school in our area- at least right now. The YMCA has expressed a definite interest in being a part of our campus.  But...due to the fact that they already have 5 other projects going or in the works, they would need us to build their buildings and they would then lease them from us.  We simply cannot afford to do that. Undergirding all of this was a growing, gnawing sense in my soul that the campus and the side door partnerships had the makings for a complex, busy ministry.  The value of keeping it simple, significant, and fun was getting lost in some very good and worthy dreams and ideas. So that has lead to some rethinking.  Perhaps a better way of saying it- we have gone back to our first campus discussions that took place 3 years ago- a re-focusing, if you will. Next week: A recap of our purpose as a congregation and how we’re refocusing to ensure the campus reflects our purpose. (Since you are all extremely sharp people you’re no doubt thinking to yourselves that if we’re rethinking the master plan that we’re not going to start construction as soon as we had hoped.  You are right.  But, as you’ll read in the next few weeks, because of the hard work we’ve done so far, the delay will, at this point, only be a couple of months- depending on how fast we can get through the city.) More to come next week. Tim