newspace@chpc

While we continue to consider our mission opportunities, our church has been trying to take a break from an ongoing discussoin about possible building renovation but still keep a general conversation going. Last year a building renovation committee initially interested in doing some deferred maintenance on the building and making the buildings more accessible to disabled people - and eventually also trying to account for growth and make the buildings more welcoming in general - came up with a plan - added to by public discussions - that ended up proposing to install an elevator and build an atrium between our sanctuary/office and fellowship hall/education building that - what with a 10% set-aside for mission - might cost $800,000 (which would no doubt require us to take out a mortgage loan).

We've not rejected that - but put that on hold - in favor of a more general discussion, which we had - pretty much with adults - in groups of six Wednesday night (when the session - the church board - would normally meet). Elders/session members - of which I'm a new one - made calls for the meeting, brought chocolate deserts (Stephanie made a great Weight Watchers recipe for meringue chocolate chip cookes - 1 point each), and facilitated the discussions, with one elder per table. I got the only small table, with just four of us, but we had a good discussion (we were banned from talking explicitly about building renovation - but people did say they liked some recent renovations/ sprucing up, but they worry about a big mortage. Already, earlier in the year, the elders/session - me included - had come up with a Vision statement and decided that we want to stay in Crescent Hill - where we're landlocked - meaning that if we kept growing we might eventually be able to start a new church elsewhere). More people showed up on the Wednesday after Memorial Day - though none of the people I called did - than I expected would (roughly 60 - most of us pictured above at the start of the event). We'll follow up later this summer.