Building Hope Update

Over a year ago, I took many of you on tour through a construction site complete with mud, gravel, and steel beams. We had to use our imagination to gain an understanding of what our building and facility will be. Last weekend, I took our worship team on a tour through our building—complete with lights, doors, paint, and carpet! We looked around and saw with our own eyes the construction and facility approaching completion. The time when this place will be full of people gathering, growing, benefitting, and being blessed in ministries run by our pastors and volunteers is nearly upon us.

Our Building Hope Campaign has a goal of raising $1,500,000. At the time I write this, we have raised $891,800. I hope that many of you reading this look at the $891,800 and know that your contribution is part of it, your contribution matters and is valued and appreciated. If some portion of the money that has flowed into your life has found its way into this total, I hope that you will walk into the bridge one Sunday morning and hear our worship team play, feel the hum of conversation around the atrium, watch children running to see their friends at Kidzone and I hope you will pause and look around with gratitude in your heart in the knowledge that you gave the money which made it all possible.

If you look at the $891,800 given by others and know that you have not contributed at all or held back some portion of your money, I extend to you one last invitation. I invite you to reflect, pray, and then give your best. I invite you to enter the bridge with gratitude, knowing that your money made this facility and all that will go on inside it and launch into our community from it possible. (The alternative is to enter with gratitude, knowing someone else paid for the space and funded the ministry. This alternative also has its roots in appreciation, but since “where our treasure is, so our hearts will also be” rings true, giving your own money allows gratitude for your own gift in addition to the gifts of others.)

We need to raise another $608,200 by December 31st. Successfully meeting our goal and raising this money means that our ministries are fully funded as they build hope in our lives from a new and permanent space. Not raising this money means that while we have new and permanent spaces for the ministry, their operating budgets are reduced to finance the shortfall. It’s a harsh reality, but we—the membership, the congregation, and those who call this church our home—fund the bridge. No other agency sends money; only what our Creator pours abundantly into our lives.

December 31st marks the end of our Building Hope Campaign. It’s been many months of telling the stories, giving tours, renting alternative spaces from other churches in Markham, and finding a way to keep sharing love and hope across the bridge and the GTA—no matter the obstacles.

December 31st also marks the end of my loan payment. Yes, I borrowed money against my house to make my own Building Hope donation. With three university tuitions looming and a new roof on the home badly needed, it was the only way at the time for me to give the amount that was laid on my heart. Just like our ministries overcome weekly obstacles with grit and creativity as they operate in temporary spaces, I will overcome my financial obstacles with determination and creativity—and one day soon, I will enter the bridge on a Sunday morning, hearing our worship team play, feeling the hum of conversation around the atrium, and watching children running to see their friends at Kidzone. I will do this with gratitude in my heart secure in the knowledge that I did my best to make it possible. Please join, give your best, and be part of Building Hope.

Neil Maskery

Board Member & Director of the Building Hope Campaign