Elementary Small Group Rooms – Most importantly, these rooms will be needed to support our growing elementary ministry, which is currently operating six different grade levels in a total of two classrooms. It is crucial that we improve this ministry environment now and prepare for future growth. Additionally, the classrooms will be used during the weekday for our homeschool co-op.. There will be students around tables getting classroom instruction on various subjects from certified teachers. On Sunday the tables and chairs will be removed, replaced by carpet circles so our small group leaders can disciple our kids.
Elementary Large Group Room – because our elementary ministry is expanding, we will need additional space to accommodate the kids during their large group time. Large Group engages our children with singing, stories, devotions, relational activities, and much more, and prepares our children to engage in the weekly theme taught in their small groups.
Gym – this room will be the most vital, multifunctional space in our building. We will use the gym as our primary room for most everything we do outside of Sunday gatherings. We believe it will be a relational environment that will generate many more discipleship opportunities. For example:
- Local compassion events (like meal packing)
- Men’s/women’s ministry and conferences
- Student Camps/Young Adult events
- A fellowship hall Community partner events
- Family ministry events (Waumba land playdates, Momversations, Back to School Bash, etc.)
- Journey Co-op use for P.E., assemblies, graduations, etc.
- Basketball, volleyball, pickleball, dodgeball, etc.
Right now we have only one large room (the auditorium). At capacity, it seats ~1,000. The multi-purpose room seats up to ~80 people around tables and probably 100 in rows of chairs. We need another medium size room that could serve as a second auditorium for other events. Set up in an auditorium format, the gym will probably seat 500-600. We have needed a room that size for other events and opportunities. So instead of simply creating another auditorium with the capacity of 500-600, we felt the best use of that kind of space was to truly make it a multipurpose space that could be used for relational ministry.
Others uses: In the past we’ve had events for families where we have set up bounce houses inside our lobby. Our intent was that families could connect. Those were wonderful events, but the sound in the lobby defeated the relational connection. The gym will be built with acoustical panels to help deaden the sound. We’ve had other events that were scheduled to be outdoors that we’ve had to cancel because of weather, but with a gym, those events could easily be moved inside. We can partner with our local county recreation and private schools to allow them to use the gym for their sports activities. That is a wonderful outreach opportunity. The gym will be an excellent tool as a gathering space for students after high school sporting events. These are just a few of the opportunities that will present themselves due to having a multi purpose space like the gym in our building.
