Building Update

God recently placed an opportunity in front of our congregation. The fire inspector and fire marshall informed us that the classrooms we use for the children are not considered part of the church, but rather part of the residence. Therefore, the classrooms are not zoned correctly and cannot be used. I call this an opportunity because it is a chance that we did not previously have to see how God will work.

The Building Committee met last night and we invited other people from the congregation to join us to consider this issue. While many ideas have been considered, we are looking at a classroom trailer as a very good option. We still have some questions that need to be answered, but we are going to try to get the answers very soon. Some of the other ideas are also being pursued. We would like to have a solution in place for our 15 year celebration on November 8.

Here is a list of things that have happened in the past month regarding the building project:

Conversations with the site engineer and attorney let us know that a gravel parking lot is a possibility, though it is not guaranteed (this is important in the short term because of cost).

We sent money to both the site engineer and the architect to retain their services.

The site engineer and architect are coordinating with each other.

The builder is in contact with the architect. Once the architect does a certain amount of the work he will send those plans to the builder so the builder can do the engineering plans for the interior and also so he can give us a final price.

A topographical survey of the property was completed.

The attorney is sending a proposal for a company to determine that we don't have wetlands- we need to make sure that the site engineer was not already doing this.

One other important development came about this month. Ironically, the bad news from the fire inspector lead us to some ideas that we had never previously considered. With some renovation work we might be able to rent out the chapel and part of the basement as residences. If we are able to rent out these spaces, the rent would probably cover the additional mortgage money that we will need each month to pay for the new building. Now you can see how the fire inspector closing down some classrooms is actually an opportunity from the Lord.