Notice of Congregational Vote regarding Community Center on Sunday, August 14th, 2022
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To our Trinity Family,
At our Spring congregational meeting, Pastor Jonathan presented our new mission for Trinity – Growing Lifelong Disciples. Part of the way we want to achieve this mission is by integrating our ministries (and generations!) under one roof at the main church campus at 405 Rush St and listing the Community Center for sale. This transition allows us to have the whole family experiencing Jesus in the same facility, allowing greater community between the adult and youth members of our congregation, while also helping us to be good stewards of the financial gifts God has blessed us by consolidating facility, maintenance, and utilities costs. During the meeting in May, we let the congregation know that Church Council had given Pastor Jonathan approval to list the Community Center for sale and to start learning what types of offers we might receive for the property.
The church listed the Community Center for sale in May 2022 and to our surprise, we received an offer for the building from a qualified buyer much faster than expected. They agreed to the terms we specified including continued use of the building for our youth and childcare ministries until August 2023. Although the offer is not yet finalized, the church’s legal counsel advised us that we need a congregational vote authorizing Church Council to sell the Community Center, in the best interests for the Trinity in order to satisfy title company requirements and to proceed with a purchase agreement.
As part of the planning process for the transition of ministries to our main church campus, Trinity secured the services of an architectural/general contracting firm that specializes in helping churches improve ministry through cost-efficient and effective facility planning/ construction shortly after listing the Community Center for sale. We’ve had a good relationship with this firm on projects in the past and they have worked with the leadership at Trinity to design three different preliminary schematics that incorporates all of the ministries currently housed at the Community Center here at our main campus.
Little did we know that God would provide a serious offer on our property as quickly as he did! Since our intent is to use the funds from the sale of the Community Center to pay for the remodeling of our new campus to house all of our ministries, we wanted to have final designs, including financial details of the cost of transitioning the ministries to our main campus, before authorizing sale of the Community Center building. But due to the architect’s thorough planning process, the financial details will not be ready for review until late August.
Our real estate broker has advised us that we should not wait until after reviewing the financial detail from the architectural firm to accept this buyer’s offer. There is a very real possibility they may decide not to continue this purchase if we wait for that period of time due to changing economic conditions. In addition, we have annual upkeep costs of $70,000-80,000 and sizable upcoming maintenance costs of the building estimated at $1.5 million within the next 5 years. Waiting for another buyer might be an expensive mistake, as we would need to keep this building afloat to continue our ministries there.
Pastor Jonathan has worked extensively with Church Council on this project and during their July meeting they moved to call a paper ballot vote on Sunday, August 14th, asking the congregation to authorize Church Council to sell the Community Center in the best interests of Trinity.
Both Pastor Jonathan and Church Council take the responsibility of being good stewards of the church’s financial blessings seriously and after much prayer, they feel that selling the Community Center is the best decision for Trinity. After securing the funds from this sale, they can then evaluate the architectural plans with financial details and decide on how best continue ministry at our main campus in a cost-effective manner.
We’re sure you have questions about this vote and exciting next chapter for Trinity. There’s several FAQs on the back of this letter, contact information for key leadership involved with this decision and events when Trinity’s pastors and Church Council members will be available to talk with you about your questions or concerns on this vote. Our goal is to make sure you have all the information you need to be comfortable with your decision.
We are excited about the ministry opportunities ahead of us and praise God for His faithfulness to our congregation. Let us have courage that our Lord Jesus is leading us, His Spirit is moving us, and our heavenly Father is providing everything needed.
In Christ,
Erin Ducat
Chair, Church Council
Pastor Jonathan Petzold
Senior Pastor
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FAQs
Who can I talk to if I have questions regarding the sale of the Community Center?
Pastor Jonathan and members of Church Council will be available in the lobby café between services on Sunday, August 7th and August 14th. Additionally, you can call the church office to speak with Pastor Jonathan or email him at [email protected]. You can email our Council Chair, Erin Ducat, at [email protected], and our Vice Chair, Jeremy Swaw, at [email protected].
What renovations are we considering at the main campus?
Currently, both our main campus and Community Center are underutilized. First, the architects performed a space optimization analysis to explore whether we had room at one campus for the ministries that we have today. The main campus does indeed have adequate space. Second, the architects, who have experience working with churches, schools, and childcare centers according to required building codes for each, met with key representatives from each of our ministries (school, youth ministry, childcare, church, and music) to ask not only what was needed for each, but also what would help to strengthen each ministry. Current considerations are for new spaces for youth ministry and childcare and lightly renovated spaces for the school, church gathering spaces, and lobby. This is all still in a preliminary stage, and we are most conscientious about cost. We look forward to presenting plans for renovation in the next 1-2 months.
How will this impact our mortgage?
We currently have one mortgage with a lien against both properties. Itasca Bank has assured us that they will release the lien on 233 Maple and the lien on 405 Rush itself is sufficient to retain the current mortgage and its length.
What does all this have to do with growing lifelong disciples?
First, we need to be realistic from a financial standpoint. While our members continue to be generous in ways that are inspiring and humbling, we are also sitting on the other side of a pandemic. Trinity is not the size of the church that it once was many years ago, and neither are we the size of the church we were before the pandemic. We need to be good stewards and live within our means. We also want to set ourselves up for a fiscally viable future in the short term and the long term. Doing so helps not only to strengthen the ministries we have now, but opens more opportunities for ministry that we are not yet involved in. Parting with the Community Center and investing in a refreshed main campus sets us up for a fiscally stable future where ministry can thrive. Second, as we want to grow lifelong disciples, we want our ministries working together so that people continue to flow from one ministry to the next through all stages of life, and young and old gather and grow together. This is encouraged when ministries operate under one roof and people can go from preschool to school to Sunday school to youth to Bible studies to service and missions to worship and so on. Ministries working together grow lifelong disciples.
Don’t we lose a presence in the community if we sell the Community Center?
Perhaps. It is true that, for example, a high school student may feel more comfortable coming to a place like the Community Center before they would feel comfortable stepping foot into a church. If that has happened and people have encountered Jesus because of that, praise God! The Community Center and the ministry that the Spirit performed there was not a mistake. It is something to be celebrated! But it is also true that our main campus has a long history of being used by the community, too. Every year, even since the pandemic, many people who don’t know Jesus, from different backgrounds, denominations, and even religions have come to our campus for different events. That’s a heritage to be proud of. We want our church to be a community center! Additionally, when someone is uncomfortable entering a church, the goal is not to get them comfortable coming inside a specific building. Do we want everyone to feel comfortable coming to worship someday? Of course, that’s where we encounter Jesus! But Romans 10:14-15 says, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” We need to be a church that doesn’t expect the unbelieving and uncomfortable to come to us, but a church that brings the good news to them. We need to be a church with beautiful feet. It’s not just about having a building people will come to but being a community of people who are comfortable bringing the Gospel to the uncomfortable. That is more important—and more effective—than a building. We want to see the Gospel alive in our families, in our church, and in our community.
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Sunday Worship Schedule
8:30a - Traditional
11:00a - Contemporary
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