From Sunday’s message:

Most of us have our little routines – we take the same route to work or school each day, go down the same roads, take the same left turn, turn into the driveway exactly the same way every day. Sometimes you can drive all the way home without even thinking about how you got from one place to another.

But then, occasionally, you take a detour for whatever reason – the road was closed or you made a wrong turn – and you find yourself on a different road entirely. You discover things you didn’t know were there, maybe a little park just a few blocks away from your house, or a flowering tree you never noticed before. Sometimes it’s good to get out of our routines and see something new.

That’s what happened when I started looking at the scriptures for this Sunday. Read more »

Here are some of the materials produced as part of the Growing Together campaign:

Campaign Overview

Ideas for Giving

Ministry Celebration Brochure

Commitment Card (side 1) Commitment Card (side 2)

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On Sunday, April 18, several members of our congregation share their memories of the past and their visions for the future of our church. Here are some of their reflections:

From Neil Stewart:

We have been here for just three years next month, but it really feels as if we have been here much, much longer….in a good way!    Over that time, so many of you have welcomed us, made us part of your lives, and made our daughter feel special.  We are thankful that when we relocated to Greensboro from Cincinnati, we were fortunate enough to find the church’s website and brave enough to come visit that first time. Read more »

We are in the mist of a capital campaign to raise funds for several building projects that will enable us to better do ministry in our building. Below you will find more information about how we got to this point. Click here for an overview of the campaign.

At their March 14 meeting, the board of First Christian Church voted to move forward with a capital campaign this spring. This proposal now goes before the congregation as a whole at a congregational meeting on Sunday, March 21 at 10:00.

Click here to read the full recommendation.

Friends,

We are deep into Lent, a season that challenges us to think about who we are and how we are called to grow with God. It is fitting, then, that our congregation is also going through a season of reflection and renewal – and facing challenging questions about who we are and how we will grow.

I write to give you an update on the building projects we have been exploring for the past several months and to invite you to a congregational meeting on Sunday, March 21 at 10:00. At that meeting, pending the outcome of the board meeting on March 14, we will be making an important decision about a capital campaign this spring. Read more »

Over the past two months, First Christian Church has undergone a Capital Campaign Feasibility Study. Our stewardship consultant, Zip Long, presented the report from the study on Thursday, March 4. Here are two documents:

Full Report from the Stewardship Consultant

Report Synopsis

What’s the next step in this process?
A short-term Capital Campaign Planning Committee, which was appointed at the February board meeting, is meeting now to process the report and formulate a recommendation. This committee is tasked with answering four questions:
1. Should we proceed with Cargill Associates (the stewardship consulting firm) to conduct a capital campaign this spring?
2. If so, how much money do we hope to raise in the campaign?
3. Which of the proposed projects should we undertake if we meet that goal?
4. Who should serve on a Building Committee to carry out the projects once the funds have been raised?

The recommendation of the planning committee will come before the church board at its meeting on March 14 at 7:30 p.m. If approved, the recommendation will be presented to the congregation at a congregational meeting on Sunday, March 21 at 10:00 a.m.

First Christian Church is in the process of exploring some possibilities for improvements to our building. We have hired a consultant, Franklin “Zip” Long of Cargill Associates, to help us with this process. On Saturday, February 6, we held a workshop that helped us think about who we are as a church, our strengths and growing edges, and our context for ministry.

This is the presentation our consultant presented: {Workshop Presentation.pdf}

This handout offers some demographic information about our congregation: {Who We Are.pdf}

These documents offer demographic information about our community (these documents were referenced by our consultant at Saturday’s workshop):

{Demographic Information.pdf; Maps.pdf; Ministry Area Profile.pdf}

Also at that workshop, five possible projects were presented. These projects were explored by a board-appointed committee in 2009, and while it is not an exhaustive list of the building needs of our church, these five projects are possibly the most pressing, and will need to be funded outside the annual budget of the congregation.

Here is a brief overview of these projects: {Overview.doc}

Here is the presentation from Saturday’s workshop, which offers more details about the potential projects: {Possible Projects.pdf}

Where do we go from here? In the next few weeks, each congregation member will be asked to respond to a congregational survey that will help us determine the feasibility of and interest in these projects. In early March, our consultant will present us with a report and recommendations based on the survey, and the board will make some decisions about how to proceed.

These documents are also available in hard copy at the church office.

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