By Brad King , Chairman, Leadership Board

In the last few weeks the church leadership has worked to clarify the purpose for the capital campaign.  The purpose of the capital campaign is to invest in people, not in property.  I would like to share with you the journey that helped us bring the purpose into focus and give you an idea of what our future might look like.

A month ago we had a leadership retreat to review our progress with Charting a Higher Course (CAHC) and plan for the future.  Our verse for the retreat was Proverbs 16:9 which reads: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps”.  We see in this verse that there is an active partnership between God and man. We need to plan and set our direction but let the Lord direct our actions. During the retreat we became increasingly convinced that God is positioning Calvary for growth.  We are responding by making plans, and part of our plan is the capital campaign.

As we neared the end of the retreat, you could sense our future direction was coming into focus when Pastor Todd asked “Will we ever leave our present location?”  We didn’t answer that question then but continued to wrestle with it after the retreat.  Soon afterwards we decided that it is not our intention to grow by relocating to a new campus.  We are however open to that possibility should God lead us in that direction. It is not that we decided to stop growing. Instead we decided that we can continue to grow at our current site.

We envision this growth to occur at many levels.  We describe it by saying that as a church we desire to grow up and to grow out, and that is accomplished by investing in people.  Growing up encompasses growth individually and corporately. We desire all to grow to maturity, all to ministry and many to leadership.  Towards this end we intend to be a church that is a place for disciple making and leadership training.  Our strategy for growth corporately is through multiplication and not addition.  Simply adding onto the current facility or relocating to a new facility to expand the worship center is growth by addition whereas adding the third service is growth by multiplication.  As we press into the future we anticipate growth through multiple services, multiple locations and through church planting as the Lord leads.

Growing out involves reaching out to share the love and good news of Jesus Christ locally and globally. Locally we desire to grow outwardly by building bridges to our community, demonstrating the love and gospel of Jesus Christ through acts of service and compassion.  Acts of service and compassion create good will which in time may provide opportunities to share the good news.  Building on the success of CareFest, we want to develop Calvary Connection Community Partners that we will link up with throughout the year.  We seek to partner with them financially, prayerfully, and practically.  We also have moved all our local missionaries to the oversight of the outreach ministry team.

We desire to be a sending church, sending out missionaries nationally and globally.  It is our goal that our missionaries are raised up and sent out by Calvary. These missionaries are supported financially, prayerfully, and practically as well.

In the coming weeks and months you will hear much more about the details of how we are moving forward to advance the objectives of CAHC included in the capital campaign. Our intent is to provide enough information so that each of us can make an informed, prayerful decision about this kingdom opportunity. At the end of the day, and I mean THE DAY, all that we can take with us from this earth is other people.  I am excited that our focus is about investing in people.  It is an exciting investment we are making and one that pays dividends now and for eternity!

In His service and for His glory,

Brad King