Read the full issue of this week’s Liberal here.

In December of 2013, we launched the “House that Love Built,” raising $115,000 and building a home for a Habitat family. In December of 2015, we “Gave the Gift of Home,” raising $70,000 to support the work of Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, as we helped give the gift of home to youth, families, and formerly incarcerated men.

While these two efforts focused on building homes for our neighbors in the community, internally, the Board of Trustees and various church leaders have spent the past two years exploring what it might mean to make 3400 Dupont a more welcoming and functional home that deepens and better facilitates our mission and ministry. The Board, staff, and church leaders are getting clear about how we might invest in our building, its maintenance, repair, improvements, additions, and even debt retirement. We are dreaming, too, about how we might fund additional ministry and congregational dreams related to our mission, strategic goals, and justice work.

In short, we are on the edge of a Comprehensive Stewardship Campaign, driven by the dream of truly coming home to 3400 Dupont, and having the building reflect our values as well as our energy and vitality as a faith community! At the Annual Meeting this Sunday, the Board of Trustees will recommend that the congregation approve a loan from the church’s Legacy Fund (to be paid back with initial gifts as they come in), to fund the costs of the Comprehensive Stewardship Campaign. In the fall of 2016, the process will begin in earnest, with a month-long Readiness Assessment in October. Everyone will be invited to participate in this Readiness Assessment, and in these focus groups we’ll share a more detailed presentation of the vision of the campaign, prioritize key funding needs, and invite you to identify needs that have not yet come forward.

As a faith community, we’re at a very dynamic moment in our history: our ministry is alive, vibrant, and more deeply connected with the community than ever before. It’s time for our facility to better facilitate our mission and ministry. It’s time to come home to 3400 Dupont!

I’ll see you in church, and at the Annual Meeting, immediately following the 10 a.m. service!

Justin