Raising Hopes & Expectations
If you have been on our campus, you have seen that our new Outreach Center is headed heavenward! These are exciting days!
Our Retreat Center came to the end of its useful life and needed significant repair. The Outreach Center replaces that building, born out of necessity and with the hopes and expectations to be able to expand our ministry.
Ministry is always a balance of reaching into the community, while also maintaining the excellent ministries that currently exist. The Outreach Center will accomplish both of these things. Current outreach ministries that have been using our facilities, like the Backpack Program, Sheridan Quilters and Men’s Ministry will have spaces that better meet their needs. Community based groups who meet at Sheridan, like our Boy Scout Troops, Lincoln Public Schools, Apace (formerly known as Region 5) and various neighborhood associations, will be welcomed into a space that yields more privacy and does not bump up against church ministries. Finally, the church building, though lovely and functional, has never had the amount of needed storage. Having an entire basement for storage will give a great lift to Sheridan’s ministries and our partners.
The good news is that construction is ahead of schedule! What was thought to be a completion date of April or May has been moved forward to January or February. This is such exciting news. Of course, this also creates some challenges.
By the grace of God and your generous giving, we have steadily raised most of the funds needed to complete this massive project. As of mid-August The Readiness Fund has a balance of $1.5M. The amount left to pay (on our guaranteed maximum contract) is $1.8M. This means we are roughly $400,000 away from completion! This is amazing news! The challenge is that we have less time to raise those funds in a few months.
If you have yet to make a gift to The Readiness Fund for the new Outreach Center, it is both our hope and expectation that you would do so. Every gift matters, no matter what the size. We also want this to be a space that communicates to our Lincoln partners that our entire community supports their work.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support as we love deeply, grow spiritually and share abundantly.