building

God Speaking Through Our Circumstances

God is the Lord of our circumstances. He uses them to speak to us. Each time we’ve moved it has been largely because He has spoken to us through our circumstances, where the shoe (building) has been constricting the foot! We now find ourselves in a similar situation with one major difference... we appear to have exhausted suitable Sunday venues that we can rent.

It was a real wake-up call in 2006 when BLC rang us up one Thursday to let us know that after that Sunday the centre would be closed for the next 6 weeks while major repair works were carried out to the centre! It was completely out of the blue and needless to say, unplanned for. We had a week to find alternative premises for our church home. On Thursday that week we had looked at every school, sports centre, community facility and church in the telephone book and nothing was suitable. The best offer we had was from a church that could accommodate us in the afternoon or evening but with no provision for children or babies.

While we were morosely considering our options, incredibly and at the 11th hour we were able to hire out a business centre in Green Park! We loved it – who wouldn’t love a Norman Foster designed glass office building near green grass, trees and tranquillity?

There were problems – even the atrium and cafe were not large enough for our Sunday morning people and the lovely conference rooms with leather conference seats were in danger of becoming not so lovely with our kids enjoying them! Our music equipment was cutting ridges into the marble flooring and John’s cafe BBQ sauce and ketchup was increasing the marbling effect in the cafe area! We enjoyed the 6 weeks but by then both us and them were glad that BLC was back open for business.

Extending the Kingdom

Since then the church has continued to grow as has our desire to bring glory to God’s name through transforming lives and society! There is so much we would like to do that would help extend the kingdom in our communities - have an in-house coffee shop to engage with the community throughout the week, run parents and toddlers groups, run childcare, after school clubs, youth clubs and activities, breakfast clubs, crisis counselling, parenting and marriage courses, IT training, music ministry, expand our Little Loft ministry (recycling children’s and babies clothes) and all sorts of social, spiritual and training events for our Youth, families, students, Reflect, V.com, Prime, Cherish and Ascend. Some of these activities could be income generating enabling us to do even more in the community

Not only could we do all these things, we could expand on the work we are currently engaged in successfully. Our communities are full of families and youth that we could reach if we had better facilities to do so. At the moment we are limited - SPACE (our children’s work) has run out of space! The premises upstairs are cramped and incredibly hot in the summer. The Sunday youth make the best of being in the small gym but the facilities are poor. Meanwhile the youth home group runs at about 30 in number and we have run out of buildings/rooms that can allow them to continue growing and they’ve exhausted their search for alternative community centres to rent. Furthermore downstairs is far too large for our evening congregation. In addition the Storehouse is sited in one of our staff team’s garage which makes it difficult to open the ministry up more widely. Our lack of facilities are seriously hampering our mission.

No Future @ BLC

We have enjoyed our time at BLC and the building has been good for us. However, it is now showing its age and as a result is prone to unexpected closures for significant repairs, something weÂ’ve experienced on number of occasions. In addition the facility relies on a significant subsidy from the local council and it is by no means guaranteed that this will continue.

What is certain is that the building no longer meets our needs and there is an increasing risk that it may no longer be available to us. In those circumstances we need to be prepared!

mission 24/7

The Meaning of History

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14 (ANIV)

There is enormous motivation for us in this verse. The truth is God is holding history open in order for the church to complete her task. The end of history is when Christ comes again and that will happen when the church completes her task. This means that for the ultimate destiny of the human history, what we do as a church is more important than the United Nations. From the perspective of eternity, the mission of the church is more important than the actions of the world’s capitals, the march of armies or the rise and fall of global stock markets. The hinge on which history turns is mission. As George Ladd says, “Do you love the Lord’s appearing? Then you will bend every effort to take the gospel into all the world.” For us at NVC that means taking our mission up to the next level – 24/7. And to do that, we require facilities...

Mission exists because Worship doesn’t

Our primary motivation in all we do is to bring glory to God. It is the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “Hallowed be thy name...” As John Piper says, “To hallow God’s name means to put it in a class by itself and to cherish and honour it above every claim to our allegiance or affection. Jesus’ primary concern – the very first petition of the prayer he teaches –is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exist because this hallowing doesn't!”

God’s desire is that all the earth should worship his name. “Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name, make his praise glorious.” Psalm 66: 1-2 (ANIV). If we are passionate about worship (which is the hallowing of God’s name) then we have to also be passionate about mission. Our part in seeing God’s name rightfully honoured and worshipped is simply the Great Commission - Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..." Matthew 28:19-20 (ANIV)

As George Ladd says, this is what human history is about and we are now at that place where we need to equip ourselves with a building so we can continue investing into our communities, seven-days-a-week, for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ.

why a building?

Without a doubt, a building is the single most important investment a church will own. Is it worth it? A building is where most people who come to Christ through our ministry, come to Christ.

At the moment it is also our single most limiting factor in terms of doing more in the community and of being a 24/7 resource in our community. Without our own facility, we have great trouble running parents and toddlers groups, holiday clubs, larger youth activities, social gatherings of all kinds, a community cafe, and family activities. With a building we could do so much more.

Well almost everything we do to serve our communities is facilitated through a building. The church is not a building; the church is a dynamic, vibrant and mobilised community where people are empowered and released into ministry within the church community and into mission in the communities around us. A building is a tool to help us do that. A building is where we are able to come together to worship God in our corporate gatherings as the body and as the community to be built up and ministered to. It is where most people who come to Christ through our ministry, come to Christ. It is where we impart our mission to obey God and his call to reach out to the lost, the hurting and the marginalised and it’s where we train, equip and mobilise the church to serve our community. Plus it is where most of the activities that we would engage in to reach our communities would take place.

Trent Vineyard, the largest Vineyard church in the country, which has gone through several building campaigns say this: “There is a clear and direct relationship between the size and functionality of the church building and the impact we have in our community...”

Size + Functionality = IMPACT