Welcome participants. Introduce yourself. Introduce Steve Siegel from James D. Klote & Associates, the consulting firm helping Our Saviours with these information meetings. Open with prayer Thank you for attending this very important meeting regarding the future of Our Saviours Lutheran Church. The format of the meeting today will consist of a sharing a short history of Our Saviours, particularly our building history. Following that, ______________________ will share with you the details on a proposed campaign to eliminate our current debt. This will take approximately 20 minutes. Following that we will welcome your questions, concerns and comments and would also like you to fill out a short questionnaire before you leave today. Our goal is both to inform and to listen. 1
I’d like to begin with a quick reminder of our mission statement. “Knowing Jesus and Making Jesus Known” This is the broad description of what all of our ministries and buildings are about here at Our Saviours 2
To be a bit more specific, these are the three values, or priorities that we are moving toward here at Our Saviours. You may have seen these phrases in many of our publications. • Growing Discipleship • Growing Generosity • Growing Impact • Now, before we get too far into our future plans, we think that it’s always important to look back our history, to review how we started and how we got to where we are today. 3
Our Saviours, like many new churches, started rather humbly when a group of people met in 1956 to explore the possibility of starting a new Lutheran church in Naperville. This idea quickly took shape and by 1957 services were already being held in the Koten Chapel on the campus of Evangelical Theological Seminary. By later that year funding was secured, a site was purchased and construction began on our first building 4
The dedication took place in October of 1958 on this site here on Washington Street 5
You might be interested to know that services often took place outdoors, on the construction site itself (weather permitting) as the building was being completed. 6
By 1959 Our Saviours was worshipping regularly in its brand new building and had a membership of 450. God was truly blessing this mission start! By the way, if you’re having trouble identifying the location in the picture, this was the original worship space that is now, largely, the choir room. 7
By 1965 membership had grown to 1,300 and plans were developed to build a new sanctuary. The cornerstone was laid in 1967 as shown in this picture, and by 1968 a new 5,800 square foot sanctuary and administrative wing was dedicated. 8
With new space and an expanded sanctuary, Our Saviours continued to grow. By 1978, ten years after the sanctuary was dedicated, membership grew by another 500 to reach 1,900 members. 9
By the mid 80’s continued growth prompted Our Saviours to expand the space for Christian education. A new, 3 floor Christian education wing was added in 1985 for use by over 400 children. 10
At the same time, the existing facilities were renovated to provide a music room, a nursery and offices for the staff. 11
By 1990, with membership over 3,000, Our Saviours dedicated a building addition consisting of expanding the sanctuary to include the existing narthex, a new entrance, a fellowship hall, kitchen, a new church office and four staff offices 12
In 1996, Our Saviours next step in expansion was to acquire the building of Bethany Lutheran Church two blocks south of the main campus. The space was used as a family center and day care. A year later, in 1997, Our Saviours opened Celebration! Early Childhood Center offering daycare and preschool opportunities. 13
After a few years it was clear that this structure was outdated and did not serve the needs of the ministries particularly well. Plans were made to demolish this building and replace it with a new facility called Celebration Community Life Center. 14
This brand new building was dedicated in October of 2005 and currently houses our Children’s Center preschool, the 10 am worship service and many other community ministries. 15
Two years later and just 5 years ago, Our Saviours celebrated its 50 th year of ministry to the Naperville community. I think from this short history lesson we can see how much has been accomplished by Our Saviours in such a short period of time. And now, in 2013, Our Saviours is again poised for some changes to take place. Senior Minister Pastor Tom Grevlos recently announced that he is following God’s call to minister to a different church in Austin, Texas and will by leaving by the end of February. There will be a time of transition and change as Our Saviours seeks God’s wisdom in calling another senior minister. But this doesn’t mean that the church will stop doing its ministry, or stop moving forward. Quite the contrary. 16
Take a look up on the screen at what Pastor Tom himself wrote in the 50 th Anniversary booklet, The Spirit of the living God that called and gathered this community of faith 50 years ago is the same Spirit that calls Our Saviours in mission for the next 50 years! The players, the managers, the leaders, the visions, the programs; they all are constantly changing. But, the mission to come to know Jesus and share the love of Jesus with the world is unchanging. What stands before us now is an opportunity to finish some things that we started years before. It is an opportunity to put our own house in good order in anticipation of another dynamic period of future ministry. And here to tell you more about this opportunity is _________________________________ 17
Transition slide Over the next fifteen minutes we’d like to share with you some information about our current financial situation as it relates to our indebtedness and a proposal on what to do about it. At the present time, Our Saviours has debt in the amount of $6.5 million financed through Thrivent Financial. 18
The goal of the next proposed campaign is to completely eliminate this $6.5 million in debt in order to free up resources for future ministry opportunities. Let’s start at the beginning and talk briefly about where that $6.5 million in debt came from and what it does to our church finances…. 19
There were a number of different capital projects since 2004 at both the north and south campus, but the biggest one was the demolition of the old Bethany church building in 2004 and the construction of the modern building we now know as “Celebration! Community Life Center. This building currently houses the Children’s Center Pre- School and provides space for multiple ministry initiatives including …. 20
The 10 AM worship service. This non-traditional service does a wonderful job of reaching out to individuals and families in the Naperville area. The Celebration center also hosts Our Saviours Youth activities … 21
… as well as gym usage for team sports and recreation as well as receptions, meals and other rentals. 22
Many adult learning classes and seminars take place here. The career transitions ministry is also based at Celebration! as well as many other community groups and activities 23
The children’s center preschool, in particular, has been very successful. The current enrollment is just about at capacity, 251 students are enrolled with a capacity of just 256. Tuition and fees to the preschool not only cover operating expenses in their entirety but it also provides significant contribution back to Our Saviours for the cost of building operation. 24
The preschool has an excellent reputation in Naperville and serves many families who are not yet connected to Our Saviours. It has been a very successful outreach to the community. 25
It should be noted that the Children’s center also pledged to the myChurch capital campaign in the amount of $45,000. That is $45,000 above and beyond the money that is paid back to the church for building operations each year. In addition, the worshipping community of 150 to 200 every Sunday on the Celebration! campus represents a non-traditional outreach to those seeking Christ in the Naperville area. 26
The initial investment at Celebration! has also spurred other development on that campus. The prayer garden was added in 2005 and the lower level was built out in 2010 and allows space for youth activities, meetings, Christian education and more. 27
Other ministries and activities at Celebration include: 1) P.A.D.S. – the weekend homeless shelter 2) Feed My Starving Children 3) Celebration Clinic offering free medical care 4) And the MEGA garage sale that raises over $30,000 a year for Our Saviours. I think that most would agree that a tremendous amount of ministry takes place at Celebration! And that it plays an integral part in helping us fulfill the mission and vision of Our Saviours Lutheran Church. 28
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