Questions (and answers) submitted as of June 27, 2021

Questions about Church Growth Plan

Why don’t we go back upstairs for worship?

What about space upstairs?

Why don’t we meet upstairs and if we outgrow it, we go to 2 services?

All these are great questions, but the primary question we have to ask is:
WHAT DOES GOD WANT? What can we do to reach more people? How can we grow?
The “Chapel” seats around 180 people at capacity (153 is 80% capacity.) A room will never reach 100% capacity except for Easter /Christmas, people won’t stay in a room that is 100% full all the time. The “Worship Center” (FLC) has given us the best opportunity to grow; at 80% capacity, we would be at 288 people. When we meet close to that, we will consider 2 services.
Keep in mind for 2 services, we would need a worship team that would commit to 2 services or 2 different worship teams. We would also be asking our current instrumentalists to serve in 2 services and our media team to serve in 2 services. 

Upstairs:  Being a Multigenerational Church is difficult in many ways.  Space design is one of them.  As most churches and business designs, we are moving to a one-story option for our Bible Study and other ministry opportunities or at least provide for these ministries on one level.  This is looking out for everyone at the present time and in the future.

Why don’t we use the FLC for additional classrooms, build walls, etc?
That’s not the best use of the space, since we are also increasing in our numbers attending for worship. If we put up walls in the FLC, then we would also be eliminating space for large group fellowships.

Why don’t we use the 3rd floor classrooms?
Currently, these rooms are being used for storage. While we could move things out of there and use them for classrooms, we would only be adding 2 additional classrooms. That wouldn’t help us long term. If we continue to grow in the student ministry, those 3rd floor rooms would be used for students. The third floor rooms are of no benefit to any other age group because of the amount of stairs required to reach them.

What if we got an elevator installed to help us get to the classrooms?

Elevators are not cheap. The cost of one elevator would be around $200,000.
Additionally, there are yearly maintenance contracts that are required,($5000) along with yearly fees and license fees. The elevator would also only be able to carry 2-4 people at a time. The amount of time to move the number of people up and down would also take considerable time when you are talking about 2-3 classrooms, which you would need to consider given the cost of the elevator. This is the cost for 2 story elevator, the cost of a 3 story would be more. Additionally, when attaching new “construction” to the existing space, there may be additional code requirements.

What if we put a third floor on top of the educational building?

If we are going to have stairs, it’s going to eliminate a segment that can use the space.
It would also mean doing construction on existing space, which would open up to code situations. Even without these obstacles, where would the people in that space meet while construction is happening?

What if we put portables outside for additional classrooms?
Again, IF we did this, this would be a temporary solution? On top of that, they would need A/C in the summer and heat in the winter. The power requirements, costs, etc. to do something like that for a temporary solution are not the wisest use of funds.

There would also need to be grading for the use of portables.  Weather could be a factor in the use of portables as well.  The upkeep and maintenance would be extra cost. 

What, then is the current suggested plan?

Our current plan is to go off the Worship Center with a vestibule (because we are using an open atrium between the Worship Center and new space, we can avoid code issues) and a new classroom wing. This vestibule would allow for fellowship; it would also allow us to reach 80% capacity in our Worship Center (FLC) of up to 288 people.
The vestibule would also double for a place to set up tables for meals, etc. It could also be used for meetings/gatherings.
The new space would be for children/preschool and weekday ministry.

As you heard on May 23, our Weekday Ministry is growing and has maxed out the current space that our church has and can allocate during the week. This new space would relocate the Weekday and our current Children/Preschool Ministry.

This would solve our current safety issues for our children/preschool.
This would also allow us to repurpose all the downstairs current children preschool space; we would turn these rooms into additional adult classrooms. This would allow the 4 classes currently meeting in the “office space” to move into new rooms.
This would also allow the offices to be turned back into offices.

What would this plan cost?

At the current volatile environment, it’s hard to give an exact figure, but based on estimates from our architect, we are looking at around $2.9 million. Our goal would be to make meeting the needs of our church our target goal, while being good stewards of every penny.

The first step in the project would be the site work needed to prep our property. The estimated cost for this is $450,000. This would be to level and do grading, prepare for parking (which, by the way, we are near capacity for parking on Sundays already), prepare for building, prepare for electrical and water run off, etc. This would also take into consideration appropriate entrances and exits that need to be considered as the area grows and the road widening project comes?

How would this help us?

This plan would enable us to grow in worship preparing for additional people; it would allow us to have more functional small group classrooms. It would allow for growth for the weekday ministry which is a great outreach of our church. It would allow for us to have a safe and secure children’s ministry and weekday ministry space.  It would prepare us for the growth of our community. 

Is this the wisest use of funds?

Given our growth and anticipated growth, we feel it is the wisest use of funds. As we talked about on May 23, to do nothing is saying we are satisfied and we don’t want to reach others-which is not the heart of Cross Roads.

To spend $2.9 million on space that would only be used for an hour or two on Sundays would NOT be a wise use of funds, that’s why the suggestion is to use this space for weekday and children, because the space would be being used 6 DAYS a week.

What would be first stage of the project?

Site work and parking lot, with entrances would be the first stage of the project.

Actually, we need more parking now, because our parking is at 80% capacity (same rule applies for building space that we mentioned). Given the widening road project coming, the timing of this may be good because we will be needed to create an easier entrance for people to enter the church property. The cost of the site work would be around $450,000.

What would we do about parking while that is being done?

Creativity is the key. We would need to utilize parking in the back of the church; we would ask people to ride together as families if at all possible. We would utilize the lot across from the church. We would need people to help with traffic and parking. 

What would happen with the existing playground?

We would re-locate the existing playground back towards the bus area as one of the first steps so that it could continue to be used during the site work.