Between

Have you ever reflected on what stories inform your life? Your foundational stories that help you picture where you've come from and where you're headed? Epic movies have aspired to do that - movies like Star Wars (Episode IV), 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe like Iron Man or Captain America. Those stories give us a broad sweep of how we overcome oppression, push the boundaries of human experience, and how our identity is forged in the fires of struggling towards freedom. The stories are told in that Between time, when the heroes are moving out of one space or identity and into another.

All of those stories echo a Biblical one called the Exodus. As I told our confirmation class last week, the Exodus is THE story of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (and many of the Gospel writers, too!). It's retold 3 times in Exodus, Numbers, and Dueteronomy. It's so essential that many folks say it is their defining story today. It's what allows them to see where they are, where they've come from, and how to move forward. This is our story.

Exodus tells us of those who are between spaces. We first meet God's people as they are captive, made to work more and more for less and less. [Not much has changed, has it?] They are between the Question of whether God will deliver them and the Answer of how they move forward.

Join us as we begin this series called Between. Let's discover together where God may be calling us in our own journeys.

Over the past two years (or longer), we have been exploring various possibilities for our church facility. Those have included options like repairing our existing facility (at a cost of at least 5-7 million dollars), renting an updated space, building a new/smaller space, or reconstructing a multi-use facility on our current footprint at Maple/Main. There may be other options. We'll explore those in our newsletter and in worship each week.

This week, we invite you to revisit the presentation the Trustees gave twice in December about the repair of our existing facility. Attached, you'll see that summary.

You received this in another email sent separately in December. You'll notice the overall cost of those repairs and what to consider in that option. One revision that was added during our Trustee meeting this past week was that we should figure in a much higher maintenance cost each year if we were to do those repairs. This is because our current Trustees provide tens of thousands of dollars worth of free labor each year. However, those current Trustees will not always be able to provide that maintenance.

Next week, we'll look at renting an updated space.