Published: July 19, 2021

Grace and peace to you in the name of God our Creator and Christ our Redeemer! I pray that this summer is giving you time to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation. I want to update you on a few items related to the new Outreach Center. 

Thanks to your generosity and the generosity of more than fourteen foundations, we have met the fundraising goal we articulated last January! We are now closer than ever to breaking ground on our new Outreach Center! Before we declare victory, however, we have one very important hurdle to clear—we have to make sure that the construction bids we receive are in line with the plan to date. 

Like many of you, we have been watching the rising cost of building materials with some trepidation. Working with our architects and a team of very thoughtful volunteers and staff, we have done our due diligence to plan for the new Outreach Center. But, as with so much in life right now, things are changing so quickly that it is impossible to predict how the construction bids will come back. 

As a result of this uncertainty, the bidding process for the project is much slower than we originally anticipated. It has taken longer to prepare the materials for bid and we have been advised to leave more time for bids to return. To be clear, our hope is to break ground as soon as possible, but we will need to review the bids before we can make that final call.

Our commitment throughout this project has been to not proceed until we have all the funds (pledged or in hand) necessary to complete the project. That is still our commitment. If the bids were to come back higher than the amount we have raised, we will review our options and communicate with you our updated plan for moving forward.

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions that you might have. We anticipate receiving the construction bids back in late September and will plan to communicate again with you shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, we’d ask that you keep the mission and ministry of Asbury First and the future Outreach Center in your prayers. 

Grace and Peace,

Stephen