The Facility

What does it have to offer?

• Great location (nearby to single family homes, apartments, and small businesses)
• 470 seat worship area including a balcony
• Clean, safe and fun nursery very close to the worship area
• Playground enclosed by fence
• Kitchen adjacent to the worship area which can be used to serve for special occasions
• Classrooms for children, youth, and adults

Immediate changes that are being planned for the building:

• Decrease the size of the stage to allow for more seating on the floor of worship area
• Enclose sides of balcony to create 2 more large classrooms
• Convert some current offices to nursery and classrooms
• General cleaning and painting

Illustration shows planned modifications, tentative classroom and office assignments.

THE BUILDING
How does this building help us best accomplish our mission and vision?
Since we wanted to pursue a building for the right reasons we brainstormed with our Ministry Team Leaders over 2 years ago about how it would help us in ways we are currently restrained in doing ministry. Here are some of the answers from that discussion. It would help us to meet a real felt need for mid-size fellowship that is larger than a small group/community group but smaller than Sunday worship. One example is that Women’s Bible Study has a specific need for child care with a nursery and more rooms to break out in for study. Other examples of things that would be better done in a building we owned are Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS), Vacation Bible School (VBS), English as a Second Language (ESL), hosting conferences, counseling center, community services, and possibly a pre-school. We as a church have not committed to do any of these things. This is simply the exercise of thinking about ministry opportunities that could be done with a building. One pastor said, “Until we got our own building people saw us as selling seafood off the back of the truck.” Another said, “Having a seven day a week presence in the community makes a difference and reassures people that you are not a cult or another start-up that won’t last.”

How many people does the sanctuary seat?
Approximately 470 including the balcony.

Will we have enough classroom space?
We can have the same number of classrooms that we currently use. We will also have a nice dedicated nursery, a kitchen, and a counseling office.

Have we determined if we can build the proposed (future) 2 story addition as it relates to Woodlake covenants?
Yes, Huff Morris (our architect) indicated that the Woodlake ARB affirmed that any future addition that kept to the same size footprint and the existing architectural style would not be a problem. However, since we have no architectural plans we do not yet have formal approval from the county and Woodlake.

Will the proposed addition of the education wing accommodate the projected size of the congregation in the future?
HuffMorris is satisfied that this property will work for our short-term and long-term needs allowing us the space for a congregation between 500 and 750 people.

How long would the WUMC building as-is sustain us before we would need to campaign for the renovations? What are projected renovation costs?
It is hard to say how long it would sustain us as is because that depends on many variables such as how quickly we grow and how many service options we have. We will probably feel space restraints around 400 people. The cost in today’s dollars to build the lobby expansion is about $400,000 and the education wing is about $2.5 million.

How long will it be before we have to have 2 services there, or will we expand to prevent that?
We will most likely offer 2 services before we expand. Having options allow us to increase our ability to accomplish our vision to “make growing followers of Jesus who influence others with the gospel.”

PARKING
Since the parking on the property is limited, how sure are we that we will be able to use the alternate parking lot that WUMC currently uses?
The alternate lot is owned by the Woodlake Community Association. They have allowed the church to use it. There are no long term plans for that property other than parking. The WCA will not give a written agreement to that parking prior to the sale since it does not want to make any commitments to potential buyers without knowledge of who the new owner is. However, they may be willing to enter an agreement after the sale. We are confident that the kind of arrangement the church has had with the WCA in the past can carry on with another church there.