Partnering Opportunities

Ministry Team Members | Renovations | Ministry Teams | Ministry Centers

Financial Support for our Ministry Centers:

Buildings by themselves are not exciting, but when they represent ministry potential, we get very excited. Here’s why:

1. The key to the establishment of a church is a place to worship, a place to call home. When the community sees a building in their neighborhood, they realize that this church is for them.

2. The stewardship issue: owning a facility allows God’s people to give toward something that will be an investment. Rent money is a good option, but whenever possible we want our urban and intercultural churches to have a permanent place of ministry.

3. Community ministry can happen there: some of our buildings are being used for after-school programs, soccer leagues, community gatherings, health fairs and more. It allows the church to hold events that attract people for an initial entry into the church in preparation for a future visit for worship.

Here are "ministry centers" we are currently inviting churches and individuals to support:

Iglesia de Fe
Allentown, PA
Cost: $300,000

Needed for building cost: $0 PAID IN FULL Praise the Lord. Thanks for your help!

Needed for calling and training assistant pastor: $600/mo.

The mortgage with Christian Investors was paid off in February, 2007! This encourages us to continue working to pay off the other ministry centers.

The success of this building fund was due to many factors:

New Christ Sent Fellowship Church
Rev Edward D. Harris, Sr., pastor
Baltimore MD

Financial need: $900,000
Needed by October, 2007 to close on
the building: $200,000

Rev. Harris and his wife Shelli do not yet take a salary from the church. When the church was searching for a senior pastor, Rev. Harris gave interim leadership. Usually, an interim tries to hold things together and prepare the church for the next pastor but in this case, the church began to grow and believers were finding and using their gifts in exciting ways. The church called Rev. Harris on Easter Sunday 2006. From a congregation of less than 30, New Christ Sent now regularly has well over 100 worshippers on a Sunday morning. They are leasing a building right in their target community and the EDA is working with them to raise funds to purchase the building later this year.

A key to their growth has been the addition of a pastor of worship. The worship team, combined with solid preaching and strong, loving relationships, make this church very attractive to the community.

Here is the story of how their building became available:

Truly God is doing some amazing things in Baltimore. The ground was prepared beforehand and there was a core group of believers who were ready to move forward, but it has been since Rev. Harris began ministering there that we have seen a tremendous surge of growth with seasoned believers and new babes in Christ both coming to the church and worshipping together.

Regarding the building: Deacon Gaither is one of the original members of Christ Sent. He lives next door to the church and has relayed the history. A Berean Church was there for many years, but that congregation had dwindled down and they were looking to sell their building. As you know, that section of Baltimore has been caught up in the "Johns Hopkins project" where large tracts of land are being bought and developed as part of a plan to revitalize the downtown area of Baltimore. The Berean Church sold their building to a developer who planned to demolish it and build $½ million condominiums. The community organized and tried to encourage the developers to strike a balance, keeping part of the community intact which included saving existing church buildings. However, the developer went ahead with plans to move forward. However, after he bought the building, he ran into zoning issues and other roadblocks. What he planned to do was not going to happen. Then he looked for a way to turn the building back over to someone who wanted to use it as it was. A certain ministry was given the chance to buy it but they were not able to, so it again became available.

When discussions about a future building first started, Christ Sent was a struggling group of about 20-50 attendees who were barely able to support their portion of the pastor’s salary. But after Rev. Baker left, Rev. Harris came to provide interim help and the church began to grow. The church called Rev. Harris to be the next pastor. He had a full-time job, so he did not take a salary and this allowed the church to get on its feet financially. They began to grow and they filled up their meeting space at The Door, a community development ministry just one block away from the new facility. Attendance grew to over 100 and they began to work on a building fund because they knew that eventually they would need more space.

The developer made a deal with the church. The cost of the building is $1 million. He arranged a "lease to buy" agreement. For $5,000 in good faith money, the church entered an agreement to pay $5,000 per month for the building. By October, 2007 they are to come up with another $30,000 to go to settlement. They figure that they will continue with the $5,000/month payments after that. There are actually two buildings on the property, a one-story structure that seats 200+ with an adjacent fellowship hall and industrial kitchen. Attached is a three-story row house that needs renovations. Together I believe the two buildings have about 12,000 square feet. Much of the cost of the building is the property that it sits on which will inevitably rise in value well above its $1 million appraised value as more and more of the community is developed.

Their attendance now is over 130 weekly and they continue to grow. They have started new ministries and they have deacons in training and ministers in training and youth ministries starting. Regarding finances, one of their members has a degree in communications and understands accounting and will head up their financial team. He will be getting things onto a Quicken-type program which will be able to generate the kind of reports that can be shared with the congregation and outside agencies.

It is wonderful that they have not had to borrow any money to get to this point. But each week is a step of faith. They have an obligation of $7,500 to send to the developer next week and it is not all there yet. So, please pray for that. But they have seen God work time after time so their faith is strong.

I thank you that you have made this a matter of prayer. Thanks for whatever God leads you to do for New Christ Sent Fellowship Church. Please know that Rev. Harris and leaders from the church are available to come and share about the ministry to your committee or to the congregation.

At a recent challenge Sunday, the church people raised almost $7,000 toward the building. This represents many, many sacrificial gifts.

The EDA staff is committing to work with New Christ Sent to raise not only the $30,000 needed for closing, but much, much more than that in order to not handicap this church with a huge mortgage payment. The more we can raise upfront, the more manageable it will be for them to handle the monthly payments. We have already seen their commitment to do all they can. Now we want to do all we can.

Iglesia El Faro
Lebanon, PA
Cost of building and renovations: $300,000
Still needed: $155,000

On January 11, 2004, the Lebanon Daily News published a front page article entitled "We Are Dreamers" that chronicled the story of the church in downtown Lebanon that was now buying a former elementary school building to serve as church and community outreach center to the downtown Lebanon community. The article took two-thirds of the front page and shared the story of how Lorenzo and Betsy came to the U.S. from Argentina and now were part of a growing church.

God was also bringing others to this church and we raised enough to make the down payment on the building. With help from Christian Investors, the first couple of years of mortgage payments were subsidized. Now we are looking to raise the capital needed to pay off the building. It is enough for this growing church just to keep up with the utilities!

The building has over 20,000 square feet. On the first floor are the sanctuary, church offices, kitchen and fellowship room, nursery and large classroom. Youth ministry and additional fellowship space is in the basement. The second floor, when renovated, will be apartments for short-term team and staff housing and other classrooms.

Please refer to the tab for Partnering Opportunities/Renovation teams for a list of projects that you can get involved in.