Beyond the Building update

​The Beyond the Building committee has continued to meet and gather team members as we find people with the skills and time for this big project. Steve Weirauch is our chairperson and leading the team forward in their work. People who have joined the team and contribute work to the process are: Theo Olson, Skye Gordineer, Rachel Visscher, and Pastor Manda. 

The team has found a wonderful architect, Susan Jones, to partner with for future planning and projects. She has     extensive experience bringing new life to mid-century modern church buildings. We  encourage you to look her up online and see some of her work!

While we're excited to begin with her, there is a lot of work to prepare first. We have found that our current understanding of our property is severely lacking. For an architect to be      useful, we need to know the current (exact) dimensions of our spaces, the state of our electrical, structural, and mechanical systems. It is more  affordable for us to contract with engineers for each of these specific tasks (as opposed to having an architect contract out for them).

As you may recall, we've set aside $20,000 in our budget for Beyond the Building this year. This line item is funded by the excess rental income we collected from Carden in 2018. Our plan is to do this necessary work first, and then, when we are ready, to assess our financial situation and how best to move forward with an architect. Knowing that our team is all volunteer, we expect that this will take quite awhile to arrange and complete. While it would be exciting to begin with an architect as soon as possible, we believe this slower and more careful approach will be better stewardship of our resources. 

Meanwhile, we know that the Council will continue to lead the congregation in growing into our newly freed spaces of classrooms, parking lot, and parsonage. There is a great deal that can be done without renovating or rebuilding. We'll leave this work to them (and you) as we Proclaim, Welcome, and Serve with what we have. One way that you can help the committee is by getting involved in mission with the council and the new ministries that grow in our new spaces. Seeing where CGS is growing will give us a better picture of where we might invest in future rebuilding or remodeling. If you are someone who is interested in finding contractors, arranging meetings and walk-through's at CGS, or doing budgeting and   figures for future plans, please contact Steve about serving on the committee. More hands make light work and there's plenty of work to go around! 

-Pr. Manda

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