The pastoral staff and the B&G Committee are managing the impact of this week’s inclement weather and the City’s loss of water.
The Child Care Center is taking appropriate actions to address their specific needs, and we are working to support them in every way we can.
Our sidewalks were pre-treated. Vincent is monitoring for ice every day, adding more salt where needed. Because we have an area with less sun on the sidewalks surrounding the building, we ask that everyone be careful if you are outside of the church or child care center.
The flooring in the atrium area is wet, and the water will continue due to the snow and ice on the glass roof. We hope to get the roof repair completed over the next couple of months, waiting for Dominion Energy to replace an alley electrical pole for the alley power line to be higher. For now, we prefer that everyone use the church office entrance until the snow and ice on the roof are gone.
A couple of weeks ago, the closure for the Meadow Street glass door broke. We are still waiting for the part to come in for that door to be repaired. We are asking that you do not use the Meadow Street entrance until the door is repaired. Again, we prefer that everyone use the church office entrance until the repair is complete.
The pastoral staff and the B&G Committee will confer on Wednesday at noon to consider next steps related to the lack of water in the building. The church was closed on Tuesday as a safety measure. We will give Vincent time to assess the whole building after water service is restored to be sure all systems are working properly. Once that assessment is completed, we will decide how to move forward day by day. Understanding that there is a need to boil water that is consumed, we are taking every precaution for all users of our buildings. Please look for updates on our website for our next steps in the use of the buildings.
Your understanding and continued prayers are appreciated.
TBC has been accepted to participate in an exceptional program to guide us in how we utilize our church facilities to further our mission to serve God in our community. How we got accepted for this year’s grant program is a story of divine intervention. We thank Tracy and Jay Hartman for linking us to the right people at the right time to be added to the group of churches in this cohort, when the list of churches to included had apparently already been selected. God has once again provided more light for us and our work at the corner of Grove and Meadow. We thank God for this incredible opportunity.
About Building for Hope Building for Hope is a two-year program for churches and their leadership, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. The program guides congregations through a journey of repurposing their underutilized facilities and other physical assets – in order to advance each congregation’s mission. The program is a response to the epidemic of underutilized church facilities across the US; by reorienting these spaces, congregations and their surrounding communities are equipped to flourish.
TBC has been selected to participate in the inaugural cohort which officially begins in early 2025. The pastor and two lay leaders will make up our retreat team. That team will travel to Alexandria, VA for three cohort meetings: February 20-22, May 15-17, and October 16-18. We will be assigned a coach who will walk with our team through the two-year process. In the second year, the coach will work with TBC to help us discern how God is calling us to better utilize our facilities, and then to form and implement a plan. Except for transportation to Alexandria, there will be no cost to TBC or our team members to participate in this program.
We will keep everyone informed as we learn more about this exceptional program. Look for updates in the TAB, Business Meetings, and special announcements. Please direct any questions you may have to Donna Soyars at soundsidedfs@gmail.com or to Sterling Severns. Your ongoing support will make a difference!
Worship in our current location started in 1911. Tabernacle Baptist Church’s members have experienced challenges from the very beginning in how to manage the pull between resources, wants, and reality when it comes to our buildings. The intent was to immediately add a new Main Auditorium. World War I and the Spanish Flu slowed the progress in raising needed funds, so plans were adjusted. “Despite all of the obstacles placed in her way the church continued to prosper, membership grew to 1,600 active members, construction was completed on the new Auditorium, and on Sunday morning, March 18, 1923, dedication of the new Tabernacle Baptist Church began with services which would continue for a period of two weeks. (page 97)”. That new Auditorium is not our sanctuary of today.
Our buildings have changed and so has our membership over the years, and yet our desire to make the best use of our facilities has not. We have served God, our neighbors and each other faithfully over the years. God’s faithfulness is revealed every single time we take time to pause and remember.
As the population shifted to the suburban areas in the early 1980s and the membership of TBC continued to decline, our efforts to serve the community remained steadfast. It was in May 1983 that a Day Care Advisory Committee reported on their 14-month study, indicating that a new Day Care Center was needed as an expansion of TBC’s outreach program.
“Accordingly, on July 27 Mrs. Cindy Hutchinson was selected…to become Tabernacle’s first Child Care Center Director. The Center opened on September 19, 1983.” (page 196) The educational building that was dedicated November 25, 1956 for church school and office space was in use again for educating pre-school children. We are grateful today to partner once again with Cindy, now the Director of ExCELL.
More recently, a church-wide fund-raising campaign was begun in early 2014 with the theme “Embracing a God-Sized Vision.” Our goal this large was much greater than a church Tabernacle’s size would normally achieve. With much prayer and the generosity of our dedicated congregation, by July 2014 $1,400,000 was committed. As we look back at the excitement related to the God-Sized Vision campaign, we had NO idea what was coming. We thought we knew. We made plans. The plans didn’t work out and now God is working them out. That’s what God does…every single time. We find ourselves now being blessed by what God has provided, which is a way to continue to complete key repairs and renovations. Once again, God has helped us reassess and find a way for us to use our spaces to foster his work among us and into our community.
As we look back at the excitement related to the God-Sized Vision campaign, we had NO idea what was coming. We thought we knew. We made plans. The plans didn’t work out and now God is working them out.
That’s what God does…every single time.
In November 2023, we received the gift of Carson Dean’s final Building Assessment Report. There is a lot to consider in that report! What we are suggesting is that we start with an implementation of the more immediate repairs needed, with implementation of more of Carson’s recommendations to come in the months ahead. His evaluation gives us even more confidence that we are on the right path for the building and how the building supports our mission as we move forward together in our “Season of Renewal.” We have drafted an implementation plan for upgrades/repairs to the building over a three-year period. We are introducing the first phase of that plan now and will present the next phases once we have a little more time to finalize some thoughts and information, targeting this spring to discuss future upgrades.
With this in mind, we ask for your support in using our designated Restricted Fund 410-Building Funds and GSV funds in the first half of 2024 to:
Replace the boiler $72,000 (quote)
Replace the atrium roof $90,000 (estimate) (already approved by the congregation in 2020; including it here to give you the full picture of use of the money and because the scope of that project may have changed)
Seal edges of the slate roof $35,000 (quote)
Recoat the asphalt roof $15,000 (quote)
Add hot water to the 2nd & 3 rd floors of the Williams Building $15,000 (estimate)
TOTAL APPROVAL REQUEST:
The repairs listed above will be completed as early as possible in 2024, with costs not to exceed $225,000. (The Building Fund has about $97,000 and GSV funds today total about $270,000)
Please note that upon your approval of these funds, we will make commitments to our selected vendors in order to keep the quoted pricing for each item. Prices increase quickly currently.
It is always good to remind ourselves that it’s all God’s. It’s all God’s building…it’s God’s mission and we’re invited to be a part of that mission, just like those that came before us and those who will come behind us. Our role is to do our best to listen to God and make choices based on being good stewards of what God has provided.
Mark your Calendars:
The Building and Grounds Committee looks forward to sharing a presentation with the entire congregation after worship on January 21, 2024.
Note: The Annual Business Meeting has been bumped back a week to Sunday, Feb. 4.
Quotations are from “The First Hundred Years: A History of The Tabernacle Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia”
