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Jesus in OUR WORLD

BUILDING PROJECT – PROGRESS

WEST LEIGH BAPTIST CHURCH BUILDING PROJECT

A lot has been happening in the background and God has been really good to us. The Building Fund has reached nearly £600,000.

We anticipate that the Baptist Union Corporation will approve our loan application for a further £700,000 within the next four weeks.

This will allow us to instruct the Architect to prepare the necessary drawings and specifications to go to tender early in the New Year and we are hopeful that it will be possible to commence demolition of our existing Church soon after Easter 2010.

There is a lot of preparation work to be completed in the next six months, as we plan how exactly the Church and its' organisations will operate during the year or so whilst the new building is being constructed and Dave Frampton is leading the group who have the task of solving this challenge for us.

How exciting to think that the first phase of our new church should be complete within 2 years!

Thank you so much for your continuing prayer and financial support. We will update you regularly, but if you would like any further information now, please do ask me (Ian Bird) or any other member of the Building Group.

Building Project Update - September 2009

Thank you for confirming your pledges to the Building Fund. This has enabled us to process our loan application with the Baptist Union Corporation. Representatives of the Corporation will be coming to look at out site, premises and plans on Tuesday 6th October.

Please pray for the group from WLBC who will meet with them. We hope to hear by the end of October that our application is successful. This will enable us to move on to the next stage of putting our plans out to tender.

Exciting days lie ahead!!

Building Project update - April 2009

We very soon expect to be able to submit our loan application to the Baptist Union Corporation and this must include an up to date list of members’ pledges. The schedule we submit will be numerically accurate but we are not required to include individuals’ names and so confidentially will be maintained.

Some time has passed since the 2008 Gift and Pledge Day and we will shortly be posting a letter to everyone who previously pledged a gift to the Building Fund, asking for confirmation that their pledge remains valid. In our world of financial uncertainty, this will not be a request for additional gifts, simply the opportunity to reconfirm the total members’ pledged income for the Baptist Union Corporation loan application.

We would be grateful if the pledge confirmation forms could be returned promptly after receipt, as the loan application cannot be submitted without this updated information. David Carter or I will be pleased to answer any questions which you may have, including those from anyone who has not previously pledged and now wish to support the Building Fund in this way.

Thank you for your continuing support for this project.

Ian Bird

Update on funding for consideration at the Special Church Meeting to be held on Thursday, 29th January 2009

As we meet together as a church to decide whether or not to go ahead with this project, it is clearly important to look at how it will be paid for. The purpose of this note is firstly, to demonstrate that it should be possible to fund the project and see it through to completion but secondly, to make absolutely clear what the precise nature of our financial commitment will be as a fellowship if we do decide to proceed. This information is being issued in advance of the Special Church Meeting so that everyone can give these very important matters due attention and prayerful consideration in the days leading up to the Meeting itself.

How much will the project cost?

This will be explained more fully at the Meeting but we are working to an all inclusive figure of £1.6million. This has been tested and it is a figure in which the Building Group and the Church Council have a good level of confidence. The fact that we are going through a deep and probably long recession [sorry to be gloomy but this is a fact] could well work in our favour. The construction industry has been particularly hard hit; building costs are most unlikely to rise and more probably, will actually fall. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors is predicting that building costs will fall by 7 per cent this year, as more and more companies in the building and construction sector struggle to find work.

How much money do we have already?

God is good. The amount raised for the Building Fund as at 20 th January 2009 stands at £473,485.59 and with the current level of inflows it is safe to assume that we will have raised £500,000 by the time the project gets underway should we decide to go ahead.

How much more money do we need?

The maths here is quite simple. The project cost is £1,600,000 and we will have raised £500,000 at outset. So the funding gap is £1,100,000.

Where will the extra money come from?

We have no alternative but to borrow the extra money we need to get started. But once again God has been good. Through sacrificial giving and fund-raising activities amongst the fellowship we have not only raised the £500,000 already mentioned but we also have pledged regular giving on a month by month basis of £4,388; and with estimated Gift Aid of £1,162 on top this makes a monthly total of £5,550. Plus we now have extra income from the charity shop too – but more on that later.

How much will the pledged monthly giving enable us to borrow?

For the past three years we have been keeping the Baptist Union informed of our progress with the project and they have at all times indicated a willingness to support us from the BU Loan Fund based on the level of monthly income we are able to generate through the sacrificial giving of members of the fellowship here at WLBC. With interest rates having fallen [another benefit of the recession] we would be able to borrow £700,000 over 15 years. The current interest rate with the BU is 4.9%.

What about the charity shop income?

The advent of the charity shop has made a really big difference to the situation. This is now generating additional revenue of £3,000 for the Building Fund every month – God is really, really good! Whilst the BU will only lend against pledged giving coming directly from the fellowship, we have sought out other possible sources of finance that will take account of all the church’s income. There are two Christian lending organisations we have had discussions with and one of them, Stewardship, has indicated that they would consider making a loan of £200,000 on top of what the BU are lending us. This would be set up on a 20 year repayment basis and at the current interest rate of 5.5% would require monthly payments of £1,375 to service the loan [much less than the charity shop income of £3,000 we are actually generating so we would have a cushion].

What will our total borrowing be?

With £700,000 coming from the Baptist Union and the £200,000 top up from Stewardship, our total borrowing would be £900,000. This would mean that the total funding then available including the £500,000 we have already raised would be £1,400,000. This should be sufficient to discharge our responsibilities to pay the builder and all the professional fees [architect, quantity surveyor etc.] but would leave us with a £200,000 gap still to bridge to meet the total project cost of £1,600,000. This is where we would need to exercise our faith that the Lord will indeed provide and the Building Group and the Church Council would recommend proceeding with the project if the loans as described can be put in place. Past experience has shown with projects of this kind that giving does increase once work on the new church buildings actually begins and people can see tangible evidence that something is really happening.

Are these loans in the bag?

The answer to this question is no. We do have to go through a process of application and assessment in order to obtain approval. But we do stack up well on what are known as the three S’s. First of all SELF HELP – we have already raised £500,000 [over 30% of the total]. Secondly SECURITY – we occupy a valuable plot of land and we have the manse as well. And thirdly SERVICABILITY – we can point to three years of rapidly increasing giving, to historical surpluses in the General Fund and now to the income from the charity shop as well. We have done as much sounding out as we can with both potential lenders and are reasonably confident of obtaining approval; but there are hurdles to overcome. For example, the charity shop has only been running for five months and lenders would ideally like to see a track record going back at least three years. Also, the BU normally lends over 10 years but we are wanting to repay over 15 years as this gives us more money up front; so this will require special approval. And then there is the matter of sorting out security and satisfying both lenders’ requirements on this front.

What is being asked for on the financing front at the Special Church Meeting?

Basically, we are asking the fellowship to give the go ahead to apply for loans totalling £900,000 on the basis outlined above and if approval is obtained, to draw these loans down as and when required once the building project is underway. There is no point applying for this level of funding if the fellowship is not committed to following through.

What are the issues for the church to consider?

Clearly, making a commitment to potential borrowing on this scale is not a decision to be taken lightly. The most important thing for the church to remember is that our commitment to ongoing sacrificial giving and other means of fundraising such as the charity shop will not end once the new buildings are erected. It will continue for many years after that. Hopefully, it will not take the full 15 and 20 years respectively to pay off the loans as we should be able to “overpay” and redeem them earlier than this based even on our current levels of income and the current rates of interest being levied [which could, of course, rise in the future]. But the important point here is that unless we are committed to the long haul we should not be going ahead.

Malcolm M’Clelland

BUILDING FUND TREASURER

25th January 2009

(OLDER NEWS is below)

WLBC BUILDING PROJECT – MAKING IT HAPPEN!

GIFT & PLEDGE DAY - What are the highlights?

On Palm Sunday we held our Gift & Pledge Day. Here are the main headlines:-

79 Support and Pledge forms were collected up along with five anonymous donations making a total of 84 responses from individuals and families within the fellowship.
The total amount pledged as lumps sums, in addition to what has already been contributed to the Building Fund, was £101,905 [of which £25,915 was received on the Day].
The amount now pledged as regular giving to the Building Fund has increased to £4,388 per month.
In addition, £17,500 has been pledged as loans to support the building project.

All in all this is a very encouraging response indeed and provides tangible evidence of our unity of purpose and a shared desire to see the new building move from being just a plan to becoming a reality through our own sacrificial giving.

What a difference a Day makes!

The total amount contributed to the Building Fund before the Gift and Pledge Day was £340k. To this we can now add the following amounts:-

Additional Gifts received on the Day:	£26k
Additional Pledges made:	£76k
Estimated Gift Aid:	£28k
Loans pledged:	£17k
TOTAL once all Pledges fulfilled and Gift Aid received	£147k

As a result of this the Building Fund receipts would increase to £487k.

How much will we be able to borrow?

Well this is where the regular giving comes in. As stated above, we now have a regular monthly pledged income stream of £4,388 plus estimated Gift Aid of £1,162 making a total of £5,550. This would enable us to support a BU loan of £483k over 10 years or £624k over 15 years.

So how near are we to raising the funds we need?

A lot nearer is the answer. If you add the total of £495k that we will have received in the Building Fund to the amount we can borrow then we will have a total of £970k if we take the 10 year loan option or £1.111 million if we take the 15 year loan option. We are still short of the £1.5 or £1.6million figure that is needed for the proposed first building phase but we are considerably closer than we were before the Gift & Pledge Day. And there are exciting plans to open up a charity shop near to the church, which would increase our ability to raise funding still further!

What are the next steps?

First of all, it’s not too late to join in. If you were unable to attend the Gift & Pledge Day service on Palm Sunday, do please arrange to return your Support and Pledge form to either David Carter or Malcolm M’Clelland as soon as you can.

Secondly, we need to have all those pledges fulfilled so that the figures referred to in this update are reflected in actual Building Fund receipts . For those wanting to implement a pledge for regular giving then please see David or Malcolm – they will be able to supply you with a standing order mandate or if you do your banking on line, the details for the WLBC Building Fund account.

And the Building Group will certainly be meeting in the near future to discuss how we move forward from this much more favourable position .

Most importantly of all, in the midst of our excitement around the vision for this project and the clear conviction we have that the Lord Jesus Christ is its inspiration, let’s remember the pledge we have all made to pray for the success of this venture in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour.

Easter 2008

Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up;

Do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

And streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43 v. 18-19