UPDATE 12 - Congregational Meeting Update
Hey folks!
For those of you who weren’t able to make it to our congregational meeting on June 11, I have taken the building update I gave and reworked it into a blog post! It may not be verbatim– I based it on my notes and what I can recall. But it covers the key updates. Thank you for reading!
Where are WE at with the building? That is the most common question I get these days at Liberti, and, for reasons I will explain, I love the question every time I get it. Before I get into that answer in full, I want to start by drawing attention to the word “we” in the question. We are in this together! This has been a season of giving, of working (certainly for Justin Matulewicz and me!), and of waiting. I am encouraged that I am not alone in this work on the building. Justin is with me, for one. But more than that, the Lord has all of us– Liberti River Wards– in this endeavor together. I confess to you all that there are days when I have been anxious and discouraged by the weight of this project– by the dollars, the timelines, the delays. My down days, I’ve observed, are days when I feel alone in this project. But I really am not alone! I find so much comfort in being shoulder to shoulder with you all in the giving, in the praying, in the working, and even in the waiting. Every time I get the question “so where are we at with the building?” I feel like you are standing shoulder to shoulder with me! That question is a sign that you care and that you are interested. I love the question!
But I have to answer the question! Where are we at with the building? For starters, we are at a place where lots of work is behind us! Most of the work we have done is not visible, but it has been work nonetheless. Let’s start with the visible work: we have put hundreds of volunteer hours into pulling up hardwood floors on the second floor. Many in this room have served under Justin through crowbarring up the floors, using the angle grinder to wear down the nails, carrying the hardwood downstairs, and organizing the wood to salvage. Thank you! We hope that reusing this hardwood will save us tens of thousands of dollars. As for the less visible work, our team, which consists of Justin, Dave Hartsfield (a deacon from Liberti MainLine who has extensive project management experience), and our architects have spent considerable time over the past month getting in-depth bids from three general contractors. We have narrowed our list down to two. We have put hours into due diligence on learning what the cost of renovating this building will be.
Which brings me to the news. Renovating this building is going to cost a good bit more than we originally anticipated. When we first were considering putting an offer down on the building in 2023, we had a handful of experts walk through it with us to give us eyeball estimates on what the cost of renovations would be, and estimates ranged from $1m to $1.5m. Our general contractors have come back to us with bids that are around $2m.
What is behind the gap between what we expected and the bids? Several things. For one, tariffs and economic uncertainty have brought up the cost of supplies. Justin has projects he has working on as an architect that are facing the same sticker shock. Also, as we have done more planning and more work on the bids, we have seen that more needs to be done than we originally expected. We knew the first floor would need to be replaced, and we suspected that the roof would need some work. But, after our due diligence, it is clear that the first floor, second floor, and the roof all need to be replaced.
So what does this gap mean? What is our strategy from here? Moving forward, we are going to have to pursue a three-pronged strategy to cover the gap. First, we are going to have to strip down the scope of the project. Second, we are going to have to take on more debt. And third, we are going to have to do more fundraising. None of these three prongs can carry the whole weight of the project by itself; there will need to be a combination of all three.
We are currently doing work on all three of these approaches. As for cutting scope, our teams plan to work with our eventual GC to see how we can reduce the cost of the project by hundreds of thousands of dollars. This will mean painful cuts. We always planned on this being a project with phases. For example, our drawings had us moving in with a room that could one day, at a future phase, be outfitted as a full kitchen, knowing that we couldn’t pay for that scope now. These cuts will mean pushing more work back to a future phase after we get to the building. As for taking on more debt, we have initiated conversations with the lender who gave us our mortgage for the building about a construction loan. And as for doing more fundraising, I have begun envisioning a way to invite new people to pledge for Project Sanctuary, and possibly invite those of us who have pledged to extend our pledge for an additional year. Project Sanctuary was originally a 3-yr commitment; I am working on a plan with our fundraising consultant to think through how to ask folks to extend that to a 4-yr commitment. According to our fundraising consultant, it is common to take a step like this in initiatives like these, and it’s also common to hit a low momentum “midpoint” in a project such as ours. We are there! This Fall, I hope to invite more folks to join the “WE” that I started with in helping us bear the weight Project Sanctuary.
So how does this affect our timeline? This is the most common follow-up question I get. There are updates here too. First, Pastor Jose from Urban Worship Center has given us a firm deadline. UWC plans to start having two Sunday morning services at their Easter services in 2026. By that date, therefore, we will have to either be out of UWC or we will have to move our service time to the afternoon. I am thankful that Pastor Jose has given us a deadline! All of you who have jobs know: things do not get done unless there is a deadline. I like deadlines. Pastor Jose and UWC have been very good to us and this deadline is only further proof of that. But as for the timeline for the project, our GC options estimate the project will take 6-8 months. If our financing is in order, they could begin the work this summer. That would have us finishing the project by our deadline.
What can you do? Here are two things I ask all of you to do now. First, pray! Ask God to give us everything we need to continue to keep moving forward. Specifically, pray for the terms on a possible construction loan. Pray that we get clarity there soon, and that the terms are favorable. Pray for creativity for our team as we try to find ways to cut back on the scope of the project. In general, get back to your praying habits for this building! I have spoken with families who had rituals of praying for the building whenever they would drive by, etc– I have encouraged them to resurrect those rituals! Keep praying. Second, being talking and praying with your family about if God could be inviting you to contribute for the first time or contribute more to Project Sanctuary. I will go back to the “WE” I started with– if you have not pledged or given and want to join us in facing the cost of this project together, now would be a great time to start praying about that. See how God leads! And for those of you who have given so much, I would encourage you to start asking God specifically if he would prompt you to give more, perhaps by adding a year to your pledge. I know this is a big thing to ask. This is not a “hard” ask right now; I am not asking for a commitment. But I am asking you to start talking with God and with your family about it. I plan to start doing that with my wife as we look at what God is calling us to give to in the coming years.
God really has us on the manna track with this building. In the book of Exodus, after God through Moses had rescued his people from Egypt, God had manna fall from the sky so that the people could survive in the wilderness. Interestingly, however, the manna would spoil by the following day. This prevented the Israelites from storing it up and hoarding it. It also required the Israelites to keep trusting that God would provide for the day right in front of them. They got enough to keep going, but never enough to store food in barns and relax. God put them in a position to always remember that he was their provider.
Hasn’t that been the story with Project Sanctuary too? At each step of the project, God has given us enough to keep moving forward– stepping forward, stepping forward, stepping forward. But at each juncture, we have had to go back to him and ask for him to keep providing. Now is no different. He has provided beyond what we could have imagined in the past. Let’s ask him to keep doing so. Lord, give us our day this daily bread. Can you see how he is leading us? God is leading us in Project Sanctuary in such a way that he gets all the credit. All the glory will be his!
-Stephen