"If our church closed its doors, would our community even notice?"
We have pondered this question and want the answer to be an emphatic YES! Our vision is to Be Jesus to the people around us. Our heart for years has been for our community and reaching out to impact it for Christ and we have done that through our community partnerships with other ministries as well as events like Love Ocala and Jumpstart. We have been blessed and entrusted with great property and buildings.
Over the last several years, we have made a conscious decision to open our campus up for usage all throughout the week, instead of just Sunday morning and Wednesday night. We want to be considered a “Hub” for ministry in our community. In keeping with that, we want to make sure that any renovations we do to buildings are done in a way that is in alignment with this concept of having our church property used all during the week to bring people closer to God.
The Need
The 300 building is the oldest building on campus that has not been significantly renovated. In fact, for the better part of the last decade, leadership has wrestled with what to do with it (demolish, renovate, minor touch up). A few years ago we were in need of a new roof as it was leaking, which caused damage, and hindered our use of the building. At that time we were blessed with a financial gift which allowed us to repair the roof and we chose to change the roof structure which would give us flexibility for renovations in the future. However, we had not settled on a comprehensive plan on how to renovate and best use the space, until now.
We currently do not have a medium sized space which would accommodate approximately 140 people for use for events such as Wednesday night studies or smaller weddings and funerals which get swallowed in the worship center. With our worship center foyer size, we also do not have a space where people can fellowship out of the heat or rain on Sunday mornings.
Building 300 Existing Floor Plan
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The Plan
We intend to keep the walls and footprint of the building, but open up the interior for better usage of the space. We want to utilize the south end of the building as a medium size meeting venue that can be used for lectures, smaller services and events as well as nights of worship. The north end of the building will have the interior walls removed, and storefront glass utilized to give a more open feel. It will be used as a place to fellowship and get coffee and snacks on Sunday mornings and potentially be a place for families with restless children to watch the service without disturbing others.
During the week, in a partnership with Wear Gloves, and utilizing Dignity Roasters coffee, the space will be utilized as a coffee shop, open to the public. The goal is not to make a profit but to help Wear Gloves train their clients in the service industry, giving them hope and dignity, as well as getting coffee drinkers who might not come to church on Sunday on to our campus and hopefully planting a seed for them to have a relationship with Jesus. In the evenings, the coffee shop space could be used by non-profit groups as well as our church Bible studies and small groups as a meeting place. We have a plan for all the groups that currently use the 300 building to have space in the 400 building.
We currently do not have a medium-sized space which would accommodate approximately 140 people for use for events such as Wednesday night studies or smaller weddings and funerals which get swallowed in the worship center. With our worship center foyer size, we also do not have a space where people can fellowship out of the heat or rain on Sunday mornings.
Building 300 Proposed Floor Plan
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Financial support
Due to an amazing God sized gift from a member that has passed away, we will not have to take out a loan. We are debt-free as a church and every time there has been a need God has met it by providing monetarily what we needed, when we needed it, through his people.
We have the finances to complete the construction and we are asking for you to join us in this project by contributing above and beyond your normal tithe to help us furnish it. We want it to be a comfortable, inviting place for people to visit and we would like to have a soundsystem and electronics that makes the entire building a great gathering place for fellowship and pointing people to Jesus.
We expect the project to take approximately 6 months and so we have time to appropriately fund and furnish the completed project.
or contact our office at 352-622-1119
