Ministry Centre Update

Last week I asked for your prayers and help as we've come to a fork in the road.

1. One road is to push through with our plans to rent or purchase space to open our own Ministry Centre.
2. The other road is to pursue a partnership with Bibles For Missions Thrift Stores.

After a week of prayer, a number of conversations and a lengthy discussion by our Stewardship Team, we seem at peace with pursuing the partnership with BFM Thrift Stores.  Here's the important things to know about BFM:

• BFM Stores are NOT the domain of any one church.
• They are a non-denominational, Christian organization that exists solely to open and run BFM thrift stores.
• 100% of revenues go to support The Bible League of Canada.
• The Bible League is AMAZING! Check out what they are doing around the world at their site.
• BFM stores are run by a Steering Committee made up entirely of volunteers.
• A few key people take on key roles (general manager, volunteer coordinator, director of church relations, etc).
• BFM stores require a group of 75 OR MORE volunteers to run weekly operations.

Here's where this leaves us:

• BFM is going to open a store in London, and we are going to be involved.
• BUT, there is no guarantee that we will be able to open a Ministry Centre connected to a BFM Thrift Store.

SO the question you should ask yourself now is,  
"What then do these two things have to do with each other?"

It's this simple:
We think it would be great to help BFM find a really big store.
Big enough to sublease 2000-3000 sq ft to Connections, because it would be wonderful to lease from an organization we support.

If it doesn't work out, fine.
We just go back to looking for our space to open our own Ministry Centre.
We certainly have enough going on to warrant this: the need to be IN our community, a place to hold group meetings and training events, space to grow our children and youth ministry, a place for the band to practice, potentially space to house our Paper Product Ministry, and all those things you can do when you have a place to call your own (or in our case, God's).

So that's if for now.
We are going to try to get people on the Steering Committee for opening a store in London.
We are going to help in any way we can.
If it works out to partner with them, great.
If we discover that we'll need to find our own Ministry Centre, that's fine too.
IN fact, better than fine.

We know that God will work out which path we will follow.