Throughout the Scriptures and Church history we find examples of capital campaigns for buildings, and we may recoil at some of the outcomes. Some of us have come from worshipping communities that lost their vitality because of capital campaigns. Some of us may feel reluctant to participate in another one because campaigns run the risk of idolatry.
Yet, as our Apostles’ community grows in love, in unity, in faith, we move closer to the need for a permanent place. We envision a place where the Lord’s Name will receive the glory, and we want to set aside sacred space for people to gather, worship, and receive a revelation of God’s character and our call as missionaries. We want to commission, equip, and send saints out into their family life, work, and engagement with the community.. We want to rehabilitate people by inviting them out of the patterns of this world into the sacred rhythms of the Kingdom.
A building will not cause us to become the His people. We are His workmanship, and we join the Lord in building a new temple of living stones. We must become a people of prayer in the midst of the building a House of Prayer. If we abide in Him, the Lord will be with us. After all, He promised to do just that.
His presence among us is evident, and He will prepare the way. We will continue to allow the Lord to shape this vision and will wait upon His timing and direction.
In the meantime, may our lives become a liturgy offered in worship to God. May Apostles Anglican Church be a safe space for the faithful and the faithless to meet God; a prayer-filled place where spiritual regeneration occurs and the tired and the troubled encounter Christ in the worship, the Word and the Sacraments.
People may designate gifts for the capital fund, and we will keep you well informed regarding fund management. Minutes of the Parish Council meetings, as well as quarterly statements of our budget-versus-actual financials are available at the office. Contact Amy Ridgell at 865-385-6686.
“The first prayer meeting for the capital campaign took place on Thursday, September 9, 2010. We gathered for lunch at 12:00 noon, and we read Scripture passages from Genesis and Revelation about the role of God’s image-bearers to be stewards of Creation, and how stewardship of beauty and Sabbath rest are really a foretaste of the coming consummation when the City of God is planted in the New Heavens and the New Earth. After reading Scripture, we spent some time in listening/centering prayer, and we then discussed what we had seen and heard while in prayer. There was an astonishing unity in what was shared: pastoral scenes of green pastures, with streams of water, and a context for the restoration of the soul.
Too often the priorities of churches have been oriented around busying people with activity, and this in a context of a culture that busies people with activity. Many people only relate to church for an hour on Sunday, and the impression of the church’s culture is that everybody IS busy, and everybody SHOULD be busy, and a culture of being busybodies is the result, where there is a lot of furious activity, but little progress in terms of a Kingdom-advancing trajectory.
It is my belief that, in this cultural context, we must become a place of prayer and repose, of Sabbath rest and Biblical reflection, of formation and spiritual renewal, so that when we go out for the rest of our week, we are prayed up, rested up, healed up, restored and renewed to live out, not a busy life, but an abundant life.
My hope is that all of our members and regular attenders would spend some time in prayer and reflection after listening to the Scriptures read, and add comments, not critiquing the comments of others so much as recording what happened while each was in prayer.
The accumulation of all of this prayer should be that we absorb into a oneness of purpose all of the prayerful reception of God’s vision. May the Lord guard our hearts and minds, deliver us from our own agendas and ways, and lead us into paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.”
