Exciting Meeting

I keep forgetting to blog about the exciting Church Council Meeting I had the night before (Tuesday, March 20) I left for New York. No, seriously, it was an EXCITING meeting!!

If you are a NewHeart member or regular attender, you might remember that last June, I announced that our Sanctuary expansion that had been in the works for a number of years was shelved. There were a lot of reasons; too expansive to go into here.

We put the whole project on back burner to give it a rest. In the following months, we began to discover some of the projects we had put on hold over the last few years because "it will be taken care of in the expansion." Stuff like electrical service upgrade (badly needed), some cosmetic drywall repair and painting, A/C replacement (system is 25 years old), etc.

In the months following the "shelving" of the expansion, I was surprised at the number of comments I received that said, "Are we at least going to close off our wind tunnel (the breezeway entrance to the church doors)?" I mean, I got a LOT of those comments. Enough to say that the breezeway being closed off is a BIG value to people.

I've learned as a Pastor that when people get sold on a church and start coming regularly and get involved in church family life, we start to let slide the things that once bugged us when we first came. Little stuff like scratches on walls that are never cleaned, worn carpet, burned out light bulbs, AND HURRICANE FORCE BREEZEWAYS!

Last Tuesday night, we took a look at the first draft of plans to provide handicap-accessible restrooms (whose doors would not open right in front of the Sanctuary doors ;^) ), enlarge the foyer (making it more amenable to using it as a space for overflow seating) and ENCLOSE THE BREEZEWAY!

The cost of the project (a MAJOR factor in shelving the expansion plans) will be much more suitable. While we will need to raise a bit more money so that we can do it DEBT-FREE, we have most of the funds already on hand from faithful giving.

Look for more news on this later this Spring!