Dear Church Family,

Only hours before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus prays not only for his disciples, but “for those who will believe in [him] through their message” (John 17:20). As those who belong to the Savior, our priority concern should always be communicating the gospel to those who do not yet know him, and seeing them become his disciples. Our mission as a church is to connect one person at a time to a family of committed followers of Christ.

In our community, buildings seem to be an essential tool for doing this effectively. During an extensive process of evaluation, planning and prayer by many, we feel that our efforts should now be focused on developing our current 10-acre campus. We are committed to a well thought-out overall building redesign, but we have immediate space needs with our youth that need to be solved as soon as possible. The high school ministry has been experiencing space strangulation for some time. Further, our children’s programs have filled all available rooms and continue to grow.

Our emphasis in this program will be on creating much more effective youth and children’s spaces. A significant majority (some estimate as high as 90%) of those who come to faith in Christ do so before the age of 20. If we hope to reach our world with the gospel we must have a heart for youth and children. Rob Buckel made the observation that most of us now worship in a church facility that was built by others. This is a time for us to give to the next generation that which was given to us. We have an opportunity to impact our community with the message of Jesus that we simply should respond to.

Churches easily become ingrown and our leadership wants this effort to not only focus on our own needs, but the very real needs of others in the world. To help with this, 10% of all funds raised will be used for capital projects to help Christians in third world countries reach out to unbelievers in their own communities. Our initial focus will be on Haiti. Working through Living Hope Mission, one-hundred thousand dollars can build an evangelical church, a Christian school (Haiti has no public education system; without private schools there is no education for children), and a well (communities in Haiti have a tremendous need for fresh, clean water). Our hope is to do several church-school-well projects.

Chuck Lewis, Joe Russo and Steve Carnell have graciously agreed to head up the project we’re calling For Those Who Will Believe. Many others in our church family have volunteered to help them. I want to encourage you to carefully read the enclosed information, seek out Chuck, Joe or Steve (or any of the volunteers) with your questions, and be open to how God might use you in this important effort.

God has been so very good to us—giving us life and joy and peace and love in his Son (How can we really express this in words?). But we have a very real responsibility to share this message.

With others.

With those who will believe.

Sincerely in Christ,