Good Stewardship and Mutual Affection

Way back in 2023, we celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the building we worship in today. Those people, our spiritual ancestors and, in many cases, our literal ancestors had faith in our community grounded in Jesus Christ, and because of that faith, had hope that our community would carry their faith into the future. In faith and hope, they began and completed a project to provide a building not only for themselves, but the future generations of families who would worship God here, not only their own families, but also families they could not yet know. They built for themselves, their future, the future families, but also they built for the Glory of God, and what a glorious building they built. We are thankful for them, and thankful to God for them and their gift to us.

Now we have a hundred year old building. We enjoy it and the good it does for our congregation and community, but also we bear the responsibility of good stewardship to maintain it. One difficulty that we face from time to time is flooding in the basement. There have been big floods, with water 5 foot high in the basement and nursery crib mattresses floating on top of all that water. More often, when Spring rains are heavy and the water table is high, we have had floods that are more like deep puddles all across the extent of the floor. We have had congregational work days to recover from such flooding, using squeegees and wet-vacs and electric pumps.

For some time, Session has been planning a big project to protect our building from such flooding. Through good stewardship of financial assets and wise planning in cooperation with experts in water abatement and foundation specialists, we are finally ready to invest in protecting our wonderful building. This summer, there are three waves of work to be done. We will "move our stuff" as announced by Erin in a separate post. Demolition contractors will provide access to the inside edge of the walls all around the circumference of the foundation (this includes impacts to built-in cabinetry in classrooms and the kitchen, as well as the stage). The water abatement specialists will make a trench to manage basement water and get it to sump pits and pumps (the existing one in the janitor's closet and some new ones). Then we will have to rebuild and restore after that. This represents a little bit of work on the part of the congregation and a lot of disruptive work on the part of the contractors.

We ask patience while this work is in progress. The church I grew up in, Rock Spring Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, went through a time of capital fund-raising and building renovation back in the early 2000s. Wisely, at the beginning of the project, our pastor warned us that this would be a stressful time. I don't remember the statistics and definitely don't have the source, but she told us the numbers for home renovation projects ending in divorce. When the space you live in is disrupted, the usual ways of handling disagreement and stress are disrupted. While going through such a disruption, it is important to remember our priorities and commitments to each other. In Romans, Paul says, "Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor." That is what we're called to be and to do as a congregation, ever trying to bring glory to God. The building is a gift from past generations, but the relationships that are here are what show forth the kingdom of God to the world.

In 2 Peter, it says, "You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love." Throughout this project, please keep this in mind, be patient with the disruption, and love one another, to the Glory of God.

Blessings,

Chas