Category: Worship & Fellowship

Where can Tabernacle’s passions and resources be aligned with God’s desires to meet a significant need (or needs) in our community?

While our Building 4 Hope Team has been busy considering the logistics of who we need to hear from and what the next steps are to move the process along, we have also acknowledged the tension between moving the process along and “discerning before acting.”

There is no lack of ideas about what we could do, but where and how will we choose an area of focus? We need to be “under the influence” of the Holy Spirit, so it is time to put some focused commitment to our discernment practices, and this involves our entire community.

In the next few weeks we will be opening the HOPE SPACE, a prayer room with the objective of supporting and encouraging each other in the ongoing and consistent practices of listening for the Spirit’s guidance. We will explore a variety of ways in which we can attune to what God wants us to hear about this question.

Please prayerfully consider how and when you can practice both individually and with others in your church family.

Donna Slaughter, B4H Team Member

Over the past several months, the Building for Hope Initiative has focused intentionally on listening, trust-building, and discernment as we consider how God may be calling us to use our campus and congregational assets in new ways for the good of our community. We have held extensive conversations with members of the congregation last fall, with neighbors in recent weeks, with approximately twenty individuals connected to our community ministries, and with a variety of community leaders. Across all of these conversations, we have encountered remarkable openness, encouragement, and imagination. Even ideas that might once have been assumed to generate resistance—such as affordable housing—have been met with thoughtful support and a shared desire for the church to respond boldly to community needs.

As we continue this work, we are exploring social enterprise opportunities that exist at the intersection of three key considerations: meeting real community needs, aligning with the passions and mission of our congregation, and making faithful use of the physical and relational assets God has entrusted to us. We continue to return to this framework as a way of discerning not simply what is possible, but what is most aligned with our calling.

One important area of focus is our relationship with the Child Care Center. We are actively working with its leadership to better align governance, space usage, and mission with a potential social enterprise model. This raises important questions for the church as well: to what extent is this work mission-driven ministry, and to what extent is it an enterprise intended to sustain itself financially? We recognize that this is not an either/or question, but a continuum that requires careful discernment. We also acknowledge that there is important relational work to do in bringing our church and childcare communities back into closer connection and shared purpose.

Several areas have emerged as particularly promising for further exploration. These include food ministry and feeding programs, especially given that our kitchen is a significant community asset that is currently underutilized. We are also exploring ways to deepen our role as a convener—bringing people together in fellowship, gathering, and connection—which remains one of the congregation’s greatest strengths and passions. Childcare, housing, and potential partnerships with other nonprofits also remain active areas of consideration.

At this stage, we continue to pray for God to reveal the right partners and opportunities to help bring this vision into fuller focus. We are actively engaging with the Child Care Center to better understand their hopes, dreams, and long-term vision for ministry and service. We have also held a preliminary meeting with an architect to begin exploring what future use cases for our campus might realistically support.

As this process continues, we invite the congregation to join us in prayer and discernment. Think about who you know in the community—individuals, organizations, or leaders whom God may place in our path as partners in this work. And pray also for wisdom and courage: not only to recognize what new possibilities God may be opening before us, but also to understand what we may need to release in order to make room for what comes next.

TBC has embarked on a true quest in every sense of the word: Building for Hope
Culture has changed; attitudes about church as we have know it have changed.  We have chosen to find out how we can continue connecting people to God in ways that show the world that we are followers of Christ in both words and deeds, both what we do and how we go about doing it.

How can we meet real, ongoing needs in our community and how can we resource this mission so that we can be here for this community for years to come?   This is what authors Henry Blackaby and Claude King (in Experiencing God) would call a “God-sized task.”

This won’t be decided by majority rule.   We have chosen to “pray, listen and discern” before acting, and “we” means all of us.

Will you commit to pray us through this process? Currently we are in the process of widening our circle of community members to hear what they know is needed in our community, what they long and hope for. They are part of us and several of our conversations so far have revealed that they are very interested in what we have done and what we might undertake.

–  Pray that we can listen deeply, for understanding to all those we speak with

– Pray that we can listen deeply to each other as we consider a wide range of possibilities for stewarding our space.

– Spend some time in silence before God with the question: “Where do you want us to join You in Your work in this community?  What is our church uniquely able to offer to make your Kingdom visible and viable here?