CENTENNIAL PLANNING - It’s not just the heat that makes things in summer seem to move more slowly. There is also the competition for time as meeting schedules have to make way for vacation plans. So, even though there hasn’t been as much public discussion lately about the St. James Centennial, we have been making the best use of our summer time as possible. Rest assured, your survey responses and focus group participation have been put to use this summer as we have met with architects to discuss our community’s dreams for the next hundred years. And, now our summer work has put a very real price tag on those dreams- more than $4 million worth of dreams, in fact.
So the slow and steady work of summer begins to make way for the busy-ness of fall, when we begin to prioritize our next steps toward a fulfilling harvest. While we would love to do everything, all-at-once, as if we were building a dream home, that’s not really responsible. That’s not what stewardship is, and that’s not what faith is either. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus probably was not talking about capital projects, but his question is still relevant. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?” (Luke 14:28 NIV)
As responsible stewards, we must now sit down to estimate the costs and to see how those dreams we’ve discussed best fit within the priorities of our worship, our ministry, and our community. Some of these discussions are not very glamorous. For example, an updated, more efficient heating and cooling system doesn’t generate much excitement on its own. But, making that investment now will save a higher cost of replacement later, while also reducing ongoing maintenance costs and generating significant savings in our yearly power bill- savings that may be reinvested in other projects dreamed of by our membership. When we think about the tremendous impact this unglamorous project might have, it becomes exciting to consider a whole new set of possibilities that it opens up.
No project is being taken off the table. Consultants and experts can give us a good idea of how much we can do right away. They can also, as with the above example, help us determine an order of operation, so that some projects can- through their completion- help set the stage for completing other projects. Just because we have an estimate in our hands, this does not mean we are looking for savings by sacrificing our goals. We are looking to be responsible stewards who can build a project that we can finish, laying a foundation for future success in the next 100 years.
We also want to hear from you. Members of the committee are Lee Creech, Katharine Criss, Kevin Jeske-Polyak, Sarah Moss, Bob Williams, Butch Yates, Carol Yates, and Fr. John Mark Wiggers. Any of us, indeed all of us, will be more than happy to share with you our excitement about the work to come.
