"BUILDING" Households of Faith

This is the article I wrote for the Congregation's January sounds article...talking about the vision for a new building on our campus and why it's timely and needful. As we've been doing all of the other upgrades around us, replacing rotten wood, and caulking the whole campus to keep the Florida moisture out of our buildings, the reality of the need for new discipleship spaces had become increasingly apparent. The Learning Center in particular, our old sanctuary is in radically declining shape. We will need to act soon. So read what's below, take a look at an artist's rendering of a proposed "Family Life Center" both attached in this article and on the easel in the entryway to the sanctuary, and begin to pray that the resources and vision might come together in our congregation to make this happen. Grace and peace to you all in the name of Jesus, the Lord of the EMPTY tomb! --PN

As many of you know, I’ve spent this fall having in-home “Going Deeper Conversations” with our church family. It’s typical to do something like this early in the tenure of a new pastor’s time in a congregation.
From my standpoint, the conversations have been rich and fun, filled with excitement for being the church together in what is a dynamic, life-giving and growing new chapter for our church in mission. Consistent themes that I heard from you regarding who we are and where we’re going include:

1. This is a community of deep love. Even through times of conflict, the sense of being a family where there’s always room for more at the table is incredibly strong.

2. We’ve raised our children in faith in this community for almost two generations now. And there’s excitement as new families join our life together that this calling and this gift of the past will be a gift going forward.

3. We have historically been a church committed to community engagement, and to living our missional calling as Jesus’ people in the world. We’ve been known for our engagement in the past…and there’s a strong desire for us to reclaim this piece of our identity going forward so that when people outside of our community think of St. Stephen, they think of passionate service to Jesus.

4. There’s strong excitement about the numbers of children in our worship, younger families among us, and that we as the church are growing again. In fact, our average weekly worship attendance has grown by about 20% over the last 10 months. Our visitor traffic is high…and people enjoy the preaching, the worship, and the energy in our praise of God. I get constant feedback from visitors that we’re hospitable to their children and that they feel welcome among us.

It’s great to be in a position of growth again, with the possibility of doing vital and expanding mission. For me as your pastor, being part of this rare phenomenon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - a growing church - is like a narcotic. I’m having absolute fun.
But, part of the dynamic of growth is getting our heads out of the mentality of always losing ground as a church… and instead meeting Jesus where he is, ahead of the curve, growing and multiplying ministry.

When I arrived, I heard about building conversations the church had been having regarding a new multipurpose building on our four acres of land adjacent to the administrative building. I decided to do some explorations of my own with the help of some council leadership, assessing possibilities on our current campus. My belief is that our land, even in times like these, is an ongoing asset for us even though we owe some money on it. However, the design concepts proposed for it are probably way outside of our financial means for another 5-7 years.
However, our Learning Center (the first sanctuary), the music room (our old Fellowship Hall), and the nursery are all buildings in disrepair with limited utility. We are at capacity in our Sunday school spaces (which is actually good news), but not when you consider our anticipated growth. The Learning Center does not meet state code (by a long shot) to allow us to operate a preschool which limits us in meeting an ongoing need in our community for excellent childcare and education.

So with the knowledge of council, I did some exploratory research on easements and impacts of a “Family Life Center” or “Discipleship Training Center” on the footprint represented by those three buildings. All together they represent about 6000 square feet of space. We had two different architects draw up different visions for facility space that will expand our classroom/discipleship space capacity for ALL ages, allow for a nursery/preschool, give us new youth spaces for both junior and senior high ministries, as well as a Soul Café for community gathering and smaller special events. The two-story facility would be around 12,500 square feet.

As a church, our singular purpose is Creating Disciples of the Risen Jesus. This is the Great Commission given to us by Jesus in Matthew 28, and the marching orders we take into the world. We are called to bless it with a relationship with God and life lived in the reality of God’s kingdom where healing, restoration, and the real love of God are alive daily in the lives of all God’s people. As we seek to engage this mission more purposefully, it’s time to have conversations about how our physical plant supports (or doesn’t) this mission in the community. Also, there’s no better advertising (aside from you all inviting people into our lives together) than “turning dirt” to let the community know that there is life here, and that God is up to something in our midst.

I know the economic realities around us aren’t strong. This is probably to our advantage right now. Contractors and builders will be looking for work and as a community, anything we decide to do will be literally “economic stimulus.” So it’s time to take this conversation into the larger community. Nothing has been decided, of course, but I want you all to know the sorts of exploratory conversations we’re having about building to support our growth and our mission in this community.

We live in exciting times, and though our world is rough right now, Jesus’ tomb is still empty. It is certainly empty at St. Stephen. Pray with me that we will discern well as a church how to lead with hope in this community, and build with integrity for the mission God is calling us to!

God loves you, and I do too!

Pastor Nathan