In the spring of 2005, the people of Fellowship pledged $13.77 million toward "The Great Investment" (TGI). About 96,000 square feet of children, student, missionary and ministry space was added or remodeled in addition to the first permanent office space for the staff. More parking was added as well. Grounds improvement was included to complete a professional, attractive campus.
Originally, five major buildings were planned but escalating materials costs and Northwest Arkansas building inflation created the need to cut back. The difficult decision was made to delete the planned intermediate sized chapel; this brought much needed relief to the estimated cost of the project. Even without the chapel, costs ran much higher than the original expert's projections and calculations.
It is interesting to note that after the cost projections were done and before the buildings were completed, our church property was annexed from Lowell into Rogers where more restrictive and more costly codes were in place. No one regrets the errors in cost projections and cost over-runs more than our leadership. Other building projects around NWA experienced the very same issues during this time period.
Fellowship's Elders made tough decisions. Each decision was made with a lot of prayer and always mindful of a safe debt to the yearly operational budget ratio. Although more money was spent and borrowed than we had originally planned, the end product is a wonderful campus that we now enjoy.
The end product required a note of over $23 million, no doubt a very sizable sum - but again, still an amount that was within safe recommended guidelines for a church of our size and budget. As of April 1, 2008, over $10 million has been paid toward the principle of our note!
The people of Fellowship have been and continue to be generous. But even at the end of this campaign, we will still have a sizable debt.
One full year remains on the original "TGI" calendar. Seventy-three point two per cent (73.2%) of the money pledged has been collected. Some people who made pledges in the spring of 2005 have moved away. Many of us who attend today were not even here to make a commitment. And for some, economic conditions have changed and they may not be able to finalize their original commitments.
Some families could, perhaps, give more than they originally planned and frankly some who have not committed at all and who enjoy the blessings here, could begin giving this year as well.
The bottom line though is simple - even after this year, the debt on the "TGI" expansion of the Fellowship campus will probably be well over $12 million! Wow! We have our work cut out for us. Each million dollars in debt requires somewhere around $65,000 in interest ... money that could be spent on ministry.
Steps are being taken to aggressively pay down the note. Wise financial management practices continue to be implemented by Bill Nystrom (Finance Director) and his team. Future campaigns, activities and strategies are being considered and prayed over as we finish our fourth year of "TGI". Stay in your seats for the extra innings, I can attest to you that many great game-changing/life-changing plays are continuing every day in many ways and in numerous ministries as we begin to look at winding down "TGI" and gearing up for these extra innings.
If you would like more information about "The Great Investment" and how you can be a part of the giving "team" please contact:
Lamar Steiger: lasteiger@fellowshipnwa.org | 479.659.3628
Bill Nystrom: binystrom@fellowshipnwa.org | 479.659.3642
On line Giving: myFellowshipnwa.org
The information above is an excerpt from the May 2008 "Vantage Point" written by Lamar Steiger. The entire article is available by clicking here.