EXPANSION EXPLORATION

The members and friends of Apostles give all thanks to a gracious God who has supplied the spiritual needs and financial resources to carry out its ministry in Dardenne Prairie and the southwest part of St. Charles County!
 
Since March of 2009, we have enjoyed the opportunity to gather in our place of worship that was planned and prayed over since establishing our working roots in 1999. When we committed to building the 6200 square feet that we currently have, we were forced to scale back our original vision that included a high school size gymnasium to the north of our property that would be used for congregational events and community outreach.

With the Lord’s help, and a generous gift from our friends in Christ in another part of the state, our congregation has faithfully been able to pay our monthly mortgage and manage our resources to carry out several aspects of our ministry without interruption for two years. However, it seems we may be missing out on additional opportunities to build bridges to more souls that a gymnasium could offer.

At our quarterly congregational Open Forum, the question was opened to the interest of possibly expanding our plan to include the gym. Based on the feedback from the Open Forum, the Steering Committee decided to make an exploratory inquiry to the members and friends of Apostles in regards to expanding our facilities to include a gymnasium to meet our goals. A survey on the matter was distributed after The Event on May 14 and worship May 15.

The following facts were shared on the survey: There are several unknowns, most importantly the actual cost of the scope of building we would like to have for ministry. Preliminary estimates are between $650,000 and $800,000. We would not know unless we engaged an architect for working drawings. If it is scaled to the high end, this would mean roughly adding $2500 to our monthly mortgage of $6260. Through the WELS Church Extension Fund, we would be asked to raise a full 20% for the down payment. There would be anticipated income from the facility from outside sources through rentals that we simply cannot gauge at this time.

The survey revealed the following—

• 79% of respondents are interested in pursuing the possibility of building a gym at this time.
• 74% of respondents are in favor of the Steering Committee using funds to engage a design for working drawings to learn actual costs for a gym.
• 82% of respondents are comfortable if the expansion costs less than 750,000.
• Recognizing the unique financial times we are in, 74% of respondents are willing and able to make a financial commitment to capital campaign that would begin by the end of the year.

With this information in hand, the Steering Committee at their May meeting decided to move forward on spending the funds to find out what the actual costs for building a gym would be. We will keep everyone up to date on additional information that comes down the line.

If you have questions, please speak to Pastor or any member of the Steering Committee: Tim Welker, Lon Schlittenhart, Bryan Davis and Clifton Bumhoffer. May God bless our efforts as we move forward with the blessing and guidance of our loving Lord!