For the 2 of you that read this blog I am revealing a day earlier what the big news is for Sunday.
Last week we had a video about what the church is – it is the people that claim the name of Christ. You are the church if you call yourself Christian. It is the job of the church to pay its way and reach out to the community. The Bridge is completely funded by the donations of the people in the seats. All of our operations costs are covered by those donations – this includes rent, utilities, insurance, maintenance, salaries, books, videos, equipment, etc. When we started 2 years ago we were able to raise $50,000 to cover start up costs – rent, chairs, sound equipment, utilities, books, advertising, etc. That money has long been gone, but there have been a couple donations made to boost certain ministries or to help pay for renovations. Other than that we operate on our giving by the people that consider this their spiritual home.
Due to the efforts of Bob Ellery and his connections we were able to present to several investors, that wish to remain anonymous, our plans for future ministries here at The Bridge. What we presented that we want to see occur over the next 1-3 years came to $498,000. This starts with expanding our facility, particularly for the kids in the community, but also for the whole community. The expansion we desire to do is purchasing the north end of Carman Plaza, 33,000 sq ft of empty space, and converting it to our uses.
For the children we want to have an area for the kids in the community to come to in the summer for different activities, from summer tutoring to games to leadership training to outings. We also want to offer classes for better parenting to help change the home life for kids and help parents find work or improve their work skills to find better work. There will be year round resources and activities for children and families at risk.
For the community we want to offer Life Coaching – this is a method of helping people find the next best step in their life. We have a Christian Counselor, Margaret Cullen, that will be heading this up and we have a licensed therapist we consult with. There are several people that will be receiving training and certification in Life Coaching this year as we establish this ministry for the community.
We will be working on establishing transitional housing for people that have found themselves without a place to live or need a change in life. This will be focused on teaching job skills, interpersonal skills, budgeting and life planning. The classes offered through this ministry will be available to all, but we will also have a limited amount of beds for temporary housing for those that have no other place to stay until they can get back on their feet. This will be different than a shelter – very focused on transitioning people, which will require people that are hungry and motivated to change their life. Homeless shelters in the area we already support and will continue to support.
All of this becomes possible by purchasing the building we are in with the adjacent 23,000 sq ft of empty space. The landlord has thrown a price at us of $320,000. We know it will take $40,000 to renovate the spaces. The donors that we presented this to have committed to us $300,000. We are not interested in taking this money and spending it all on the building so we are trusting God to come through again by getting the landlords to accept an offer of half that price. Lets pray that God intervene and show the people that own this building the benefits of letting this building go for cheap. This money will be going to expand our facility and kick off new ministries. The purchase of the property will save us $2000 per month on rent which will offset the increase in utilities and maintenance. There will be increased costs to cover the ministries we are starting, but as we have grown we have also seen increases in your giving. All of this is possible due to your telling others about what you have experienced here and your faithfulness in giving. There are many people that have experienced tremendous life change because of you. Thank you for your support.
