“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matthew 9:37-38
For Your Neighbor Initiative
When I look at the growth and development of our community, I can’t help but see a plentiful harvest. Driving down Church Street I see bulldozers leveling the ground, preparing for a new crop of houses and apartments. Each will be filled with unique individuals and families, and yet they will long for the same thing: a community. As they start over in an unfamiliar town, they will be reliant upon us—their neighbors—to invite them into a place of connection and belonging!
We are witnessing the birth of a flourishing mission field, and St. Mark’s Community Church is positioned right at the center of the harvest! What an exciting blessing this is, and yet also a remarkable responsibility. We are being sent out to serve our neighbor, to pray over their houses, and to invite them to make their home in the love of Jesus.
In 1946, two dozen families that gathered for worship here at St. Mark’s built a chapel that could comfortably seat over 150 congregants. It was a space that would easily accommodate their growth for years to come and yet they had a convincing thought: “What if God is doing something bigger here in Alamance County?” It led them to dream about the kind of impact their little church could have on the growing community around them. In faith, they laid a foundation much larger than the chapel would need and roughly 40 years later, their dreams came true. The chapel could no longer hold the harvest, and so they expanded its walls upon the foundation that had already been poured. That faithful vision of what God might do became the underpinning of a church on mission for their neighbors.
Today, I want to invite us into a similar moment. As we picture what this community will look like forty years from now, let us plan for the ones still to come. The For Your Neighbor initiative is a dream that will stretch us to imagine what God might do if we are willing to open our homes, our church, and our hearts to the mission field into which He has called us. It is a faithful vision to prepare our facility, expand our capacity, increase our accessibility, and faithfully welcome His abundant harvest!
Sincerely,
Pete Stearns
Pete Stearns
SCOPE of WORK
If we embark on the For Your Neighbor initiative, we will seek to revitalize our facility in three primary capacities while also resourcing our community through the faithful work of our mission partners in east Burlington. To fund these four major projects, we will look to raise $4.5 to $5.5 million over 36 months. We know that this is a tall task, but when the Church walks faithfully and generously, God moves mountains and splits seas!
STUDENT CENTER
OVERHAUL
St. Mark’s Community Church has a long history of loving students and student ministry. Yet, in the 170 years the church has existed, we have not made a physical investment in a space primarily focused on middle and high school students. This project seeks to open up the Student Center welcome area, brighten the space, and cultivate an environment where students feel at home!
WORSHIP CENTER
FACELIFT
Our Worship Center is a remarkable place to gather, glorify God, engage in intimate prayer, and deepen our walk with Jesus Christ! We want to leverage this resource by making physical modifications that will make the Worship Center more accessible to a variety of ministries and initiatives. We will strive to invite connection by eliminating barriers, expand seating capacity for large services, and create flexibility for community gatherings and innovative worship experiences.
PARKING LOT
EXPANSION
We have a major ministry imbalance at St. Mark’s Community Church: our parking lots fill up before our Worship Center does! We are growing, and our ministry spaces are prepared to accommodate that growth, but our parking lots simply are not. To address this pinch point, we will significantly expand the footprint of our parking lots on Willow Oak Drive to centralize our parking and bring guests closer to our main entrance.
EAST BURLINGTON
PARTNERSHIPS
We are in the early stages of discernment with our mission partners in east Burlington about a physical investment that would create space for community enrichment. One leading project would be a partnership with the Dream Center to place a beautiful soccer field in the heart of their neighborhood. This would be a green space that would allow their thriving soccer ministry to expand while cultivating a place for families and teens to gather in their neighborhood.
PRAY
God is doing remarkable things in our community. Let’s pray together about how God will use St. Mark’s Community Church to faithfully tend to the harvest!
DISCERN
Take time to humbly consider how God might be leading you to engage in this initiative as you take a bold step of faith For Your Neighbor.
SURVEY
Please join us for worship on Sunday, March 23rd, as we take our Readiness Assessment Survey together. This anonymous survey is designed to capture your top-of-mind feedback regarding our vision for this project.
We are praying for 100% participation in this brief survey.
This is not a pledge or a commitment, but simply a tool that will help us discern together where God is leading us in the years to come!
