Buckle Up, Things Are Changing!

Three years ago we were finishing up the work on our building and getting close to our grand opening Sunday.  That was after more than a year of really hard work to get into the building.  It was a super exciting time for all of us – FINALLY our own home!

Growth that first year in the building was through the roof, forcing us quickly to 2 services.  We knew 2 services would come, but we thought it would take a little longer.  Continued growth in our second year forced us to begin looking at options for our children’s ministry.  With the continued growth, we decided to work on Phase 2 of the building, which was a 1500 square foot existing addition.  We finished that in 2019 and moved one of our growing children’s classes to the upstairs and used the downstairs for our New City Class and other meeting and training events.

2019’s growth as a church was amazing.  As a result, while we still have a little breathing room in our sanctuary, first service more than second, our children’s ministry is maxing out space!  We have shifted age groups to different rooms, rearranged furniture and maxed out our amazing volunteers.  Our people have done an incredible job of inviting friends, family, coworkers and neighbors and people are coming!

The space needs for our children’s ministry led to serious discussions with staff and elders several months ago.  The “one day we’ll need to figure out more space” discussion had become, “Its time we figure out how to create more space.”  The elders and staff talked through options and began conversations with contractors and realtors.  We added to the staff and elder team a group of 10 New City Partners to help pray and think through options.
Here are many of the options we discussed:

Do Nothing:
We could just do nothing to gain space and keep things as they are.  This is a terrible idea!  Lack of space is already likely impacting the perception of visitors.  It will at some point lead to visitors and regulars not returning.

Plant another New City congregation: 
We don’t have a lead pastor for a new congregation. We would be sending out incredible volunteers which would leave us shorthanded to carry out the work here.  Past experience has shown that planting with another leader in another location would not free up a great deal of space in the areas we need space.

A Satellite Campus:
A building could be purchased nearby that would give us 2 kid’s spaces and 2 worship spaces allowing us to go to one service in 2 locations with live music and one location doing video feed preaching.  We all agreed that video feed for our people was a big negative!  This would also be expensive and would stress our volunteer and staff base.

Build a Children’s building or Add On:
There is enough land that could be purchased so that we could build a detached children’s building with all the space we need for children.  Our parents did not like the idea of a detached building and construction and grading costs would be significant.  While adding on would be much less expensive, it would take up valuable parking and according to our realtor, would likely not add a great deal of value to the building.
ADDITIONALLY, our growth trends show that while adding space for children would be great for now, within 3 years we will also max out our worship space (office space is already tight).  So in 1 to 3 years we would be out a substantial amount of money and facing the same problem we are now facing.

Find a New Building:
We would list our building for sale and when it sold have money to use toward the purchase of a new building.  We would seek a building that would meet our children’s and adult needs, allow us to go to 1 service and leave some room for growth.

At our January 17th Partners Dinner we made the announcement.  All three groups, elders, staff and our expansion team reached the same conclusion.  We believe that the best stewardship is to sell our current building and find a new building.  So we are taking steps of faith in that direction!  We feel a bit like Abram in Genesis 12:1-9 – the Lord has told us to take these steps, but hasn’t given the details of when and where!  What we do know right now is that all involved in evaluating where we are and where we need to go have unanimously concluded that we should seek a larger building that would let us go to one service and give us room to grow.  Additionally, the elders sense that God has not called us out of the downtown area. 

What’s Next?
We will soon list our building for sale.
We will continue searching for a building.  We have already looked at several and there are a few possibilities that we should be praying about.
We will do all that we can to make room for more families with more children.
We are looking at short term options in the event that our current building sells before we are ready to move into a new space.

What Can You Do?
Pray!  Pray for God’s favor in a building.  Pray for wisdom for leadership.  Pray for a purchaser for our current building.  Pray that God would show himself mighty and amazing in this process – not just to us, but to our city and beyond!  Pray for peace and excitement in our people.
Give.  We will need to have some reserves for purchasing a new building.  We’ll tighten the spending belt and maximize our sale, but buying a larger building will also cost more.
Share with us locations that might work.
And if you are a New City person, keep inviting and sharing the good news of the gospel! 

What great problems to have!
Our building has been a tremendous blessing. It has given us a great place to grow, to serve, to love others and welcome them into the family. We have seen weddings, baptisms, child dedications and so much more in this building! We have sent missionaries from here to other cities, other states and other countries! We have supported missionaries who live in foreign places. We have supported missionaries who live here. We have supported local ministries. And none of that will change.
We are really the church. A building is just where we gather.
1015 Riverside Drive has just been our large gathering place.
It has always been temporary - everything is, until Jesus returns.
We’ll look for another one, a larger one. One where we will grow and serve - serve one another, serve our city and hopefully well beyond our city. We’ll welcome visitors into the building when we gather with the hopes of welcoming them not only into our family, but into the family of God. We will have marriages there and baptisms and child dedications. We’ll send and support missionaries and from there we will raise up leaders and plant churches and support ministries and see God do great things!
At least that’s our prayer - ministry, not just a building.
God is doing something amazing and we get to be a part of it!

Buckle up, family.  Things are changing.