Renovation Progress Update | Drawings Complete

Hello church family!

I am excited to share that the construction drawings for our upcoming renovation are complete and are now being submitted to Roanoke County for permitting.

The Building Committee has done an excellent job fine-tuning the plans and navigating a variety of decisions with an eye toward excellence, ministry effectiveness, and sound financial stewardship. With the milestone of permitting now before us, I want to ask our church family to join our hearts together in several important ways.

First, let’s continue to be a people of prayer.

• Please pray for the permitting process. Pray specifically for those who will review the plans—that the Lord would grant them eyes to see anything that needs to be addressed, that any necessary corrections would be clear and easily resolved, and that full and final approval to proceed would come soon.
• Please pray for our Budget Committee as they pursue financing to cover any renovation costs we are unable to fund through our current giving and existing cash reserves.
• Please pray for the bids to come back within—or even better than—the total project budget approved by the church.
• Please pray that the contractors ultimately selected for the project will be committed to excellence in their work and eager to stand behind it. Because this project will take place within existing spaces dating to 1968, 1998, and 2012, we have an opportunity to address significant deferred maintenance and put these spaces on solid footing for years to come. 
• Please pray for the Lord to prepare our hearts for some inconveniences during the renovation. At this point, we anticipate the renovation beginning sometime in October. During the renovation work involving the gym, worship will still take place in the gym using a temporary stage and temporary AV equipment. Our hope is to complete the gym before Advent begins. If that timing is not possible, the work in the gym will begin immediately after Advent, with the goal of completing it before Easter Sunday.

In addition to those prayer requests, I also want to say a word about our adult 3D groups. Many of our groups will soon be moving classrooms so we can continue meeting during the renovation. I do not yet have a precise date for when those rooms will be ready, but we are still aiming for no later than the end of July. I am deeply grateful for your kindness, flexibility, and willingness to move to a new location. I know this involves sacrifice. You are helping us make a better ministry home for the next generation, and I am truly thankful for your graciousness in this season. We will do everything we can to make the transition as clear and seamless as possible.

Finally, I want to ask you to continue giving generously as the Spirit leads and as the Lord provides.

I am very excited about the opportunity before us. We have the opportunity to improve our facilities, create secure and consolidated spaces for our kids, address long-standing facility needs, and make the gym much more suitable for worshiping King Jesus together.

But I am most excited about the people this project represents. This is our church family pulling together to make an immediate investment in the next generation God is already bringing to us. It is also an investment in the more distant future—in believers who have not even been born yet, but who may one day walk these same halls, gather in these same spaces, hear the same gospel, sing to the same Savior, and learn to love Christ and one another in this place until Jesus returns.

We stand on the shoulders of believers who came before us. They invested their lives, prayers, labor, and resources so we would have a place to gather, worship, disciple, serve, and send. Now the Lord has given us an opportunity to do the same for those who will come after us. We have an opportunity to invest in such a way that future generations—people who may never know our names—will give thanks that our generation was captivated by the worthiness of Christ, whose name is above every name.

Buildings are not the most important thing. Jesus is. The progress of His glorious gospel deeper into our lives and farther out to more people is. But in our context, buildings are a significant way we gather for worship, teach the Word, disciple children and adults, welcome guests, serve families, and equip one another for ministry. 

By God’s grace, we now have an opportunity to refine our existing space to serve us well in devoting ourselves to Christ and one another for years to come. The investments we make right now will help us fund the project, reduce the long-term cost of any financing required, make future phases possible sooner, and strengthen our ministry for years to come.

So let’s pray. Let’s give. Let’s be patient and gracious throughout the process. And let’s do all of it for the glory of King Jesus—now and for generations to come.

In His love,
Pastor Daniel