Bridge Campaign

Watch the "Building A Bridge" Video

********UPDATE - REQUEST FOR HELP!**********

Thank you to everyone who committed to paying for our Word of Peace building through a Building a Bridge pledge.  Two hundred twenty-seven pledges have brought us a third of the way to the overall goal.  Unfortunately, we have over 1200 giving units and the pledged amount we have received will not cover our mortgage payments for the next year.

Building a Bridge pledges pay for our mortgage.  We may have to delay the architectural drawings for our new worship center, BUT WE MUST PAY OUR MORTGAGE AND MEET OUR CURRENT FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS.  If we do not fulfill this obligation, we will have to reduce staff, worship, and programming opportunities to fulfill our obligations.

Please remember, your General Fund weekly offering is different from your Building pledge.  The information below shows the remaining amount needed to meet our mortgage payments:

If every family shared this financial need, no one family would miss out on worship, church school, or other ministry needs.  Pledge cards are located at the Information Desk in the Gathering Area.  For more information on Building a Bridge, please see the information below.

"Building A Bridge"

What Is It and How Can You Help?

General Fund Defined

Before delving into a building fund, let’s first define a general fund. A general fund is composed of any offerings or donations that are not designated to a building fund. Budgets are set each year based on the expected offerings of the congregation. From that budget, all expenses that are not related to the church structure are paid, including salaries, utilities, ministry team supplies, etc.

Building Fund Defined

A building fund includes offerings that are pledged or given by a congregation and are designated for the building expenses, such as the mortgage payment, structure maintenance, upkeep and/or construction.

Churches are often required, either by their constitution or by their lenders, to maintain both funds separately. Therefore, money cannot be transferred between them.

At Word Of Peace, our most recent building fund, Forward in Faith, allowed us to build our current structure. The Forward In Faith pledges will end in June 2007.

We plan to start construction on the next portion of our building and ask for another commitment from members to support the new construction in June 2008. Currently, the facility team, church council, pastors, and other teams are researching the best way to serve our church, our community, and God with the next phase of our building plan.

Bridge Defined

With the current Forward in Faith building fund pledges ending, and another year before we start the next campaign, we need to “bridge” the gap with funds from June of this year through June of 2008.

The Building a Bridge building fund will need to cover the known expenses of the monthly mortgage payments and the blueprint and model development over the next year.

These expenses are in addition to the current needs covered by the general fund. The Building a Bridge pledges need to be made in addition to your current offering, not by splitting what you currently give.

The following table shows how this translates into dollars and how we are hoping you can contribute.

If each family contributed to the Building a Bridge fund, a weekly offering of $10 would cover our expenses.

What Happens If We Don’t Reach The Goal?

Many opportunities available through Word of Peace depend on both the building fund goal being achieved while general fund stands firm. The ability to welcome children to church school, finding a seat for the weekly services and keeping our incredible staff are a few of the luxuries we currently enjoy, but would be threatened by a drop in giving to the building or general funds. Also, the Charter school currently sharing our property will soon be moving. This will result in both a loss of income and church school space, making our building fund needs even more pressing.

How You Can Help

On Sunday, April 22, Word of Peace asked you to pledge your support to the Building a Bridge campaign.  If you made a commitment to the Forward in Faith building fund, please consider continuing or possibly raising your commitment through June 2008.  If you have not, the Building a Bridge campaign is a great time to start!

To ensure that your building fund pledge is recorded correctly, please mark on your offering envelope how you want the funds to be applied.

Prayerfully consider the benefits you directly and indirectly receive through your congregation and your ability to help in this time of financial need.