It’s still hard to believe. One end of a rainbow touching down on our church land on the Sunday that we were setting up to have an after-church fellowship on the land?! It wasn’t hard to perceive God’s smile and encouragement to our church family about our future.

[For more about the rainbow]

Since we launched our campaign for our future ministry center in October 2015, we had no idea that a year and a half later we would have raised $2.2 million. That means that our $575,000 purchase of 10 acres of land is fully paid off, and that we have $1.6 million that our members and friends have given in the bank.

On Sunday, April 30, we will be sharing with our church how close we are to beginning our building project, the changes we’ve made in the initial building design and the new preliminary cost estimates relative to construction. Our Building Team has worked diligently and has been meeting every other week, on Tuesdays at 6:00 a.m. since January because the project has gained momentum.

Here are some of the accomplishments that have taken place since December:

  • We selected Spectrum Design out of Roanoke to move us into the next phase with bridging documents. Spectrum was our architect that we selected to design the facility to begin with, and we were excited that they bid competitively on this stage. We now have documents that we will be able to submit to a general contractors for bids.
  • We have revised our original floor-plan, adding space to the Youth/College/GAP room, rotating the auditorium, adding space to the children’s ministry wing, and adding another small group room to the facility. These changes were made in consultation with staff to accommodate current and future growth.
  • We are meeting with Staff, Leadership Board, and Stewardship Team members to set financial trigger points that will embrace both faith and fiscal responsibility as we determine the amount of money that Northstar is able to finance without the loan payment negatively impacting our ministry budget. Setting this amount will help us determine how much more money we will need to raise before approaching a bank for a loan.

You need to know that the leadership teams of Northstar are very excited. We are fully on board, and each of our families have made prayerful financial commitments to the building campaign. We believe that we are very close to seeing dirt begin to move and construction to begin.

What does this mean for you?

For that to happen, we are encouraging all members and regular attenders to respond in three ways:

  1. Prayerfully consider your Immeasurably More commitment and involvement. See if you are still on track to give what you pledged. If you see that you can give more (or less), please revise your pledge so that we can have an accurate idea of what is pledged.
  2. If you haven’t pledged to the campaign yet, we humbly ask that you pray about doing so. These are exciting, significant days for this generation of Northstar. We believe that it will take all of us together to complete the Northstar Ministry Center, a facility that will be a blessing to this generation and many generations into the future. You can fill out an online pledge form here: www.dontgo.be/imcommit.
  3. Share the campaign brochure or website (www.northstarfamily.org/more) with others who you sense are interested in what God is doing through Northstar and who might be willing to support the project in prayer or giving. We’ve always felt that parents, grandparents, churches, businesses and organizations will have a significant role to play in the campaign.

We’ve known from the beginning that this project is beyond what we are able to do. That’s why we chose the extravagant promise of Ephesians 3:20-21 as our campaign theme. We are confident that God has called us forward in faith, and we are eager to see how He will provide in the days ahead. We’re certain that Northstar will be blessed AND that God will get the glory.