2022
A Final Push to Finish Onward!
Onward Building Campaign | by Pastor David Parker
Downtown Cornerstone,
It was great to gather with you all this past Sunday! My heart was so encouraged by our time together singing, sitting under the preached word, and responding to the Lord’s initiating work. I can’t wait to do it again this Sunday!
During our gathering, I took a few minutes to give a quick financial update (more details here), and share some exciting news about our new building and our Onward campaign! If you didn’t get a chance to catch that update, you can watch it below.
A Final Push to Finish Onward!
By our reports, and since so many of you are new to DCC, over half of our church has not yet had the opportunity to give or pledge towards our new building.
Now that we have a construction permit(!), and before we close out our fiscal year at the end of this month, we want to make a final push to finish our Onward campaign and invite everyone to prayerfully consider pledging toward our future home. We are currently about $450,000 short of our $3.5 million dollar goal.
The more that is pledged or given now, the more we will be able to build out now, and the less we will have to borrow later.
Giving and Pledging
We know that above and beyond financial giving can take careful and prayerful planning, so pledging is a simple way of expressing a future commitment to give to this project over a period of time. Whether that be a one-time, weekly, monthly, or quarterly gift over a year or two, a pledge is a tool that helps us continue planning through each phase of this project wisely.
Pledges can be fulfilled in the future by either directly donating cash or other securities to DCC (company stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.).
If you are wondering how you can give or pledge to Onward:
First, you can give directly to the DCC Giving fund. Any giving above and beyond our budgeted need for this fiscal year (ending June 30th) will go towards our new building.
Second, you can go to the Onward page on our website or use the button below to submit a pledge. Again, every dollar pledged to be given in the future, will be one less dollar we need to borrow.
Would you consider partnering with us for the sake of the gospel in Seattle and to help see us get into our new home?
Clearly, we don’t want this final push to be a substitute for your regular, ongoing giving to the general DCC Giving fund (so we can make sure we’re able to pay our staff and monthly bills), but we do know that many of us have opportunities throughout the year (through extra income, company stock vestments, and the like) to give above and beyond.
A Brief Project Narrative
If you are new to our church, in 2010 we planted Downtown Cornerstone Church as a Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, Gospel-centered church in the heart of downtown Seattle. Since then, we have prayed for an opportunity to purchase a permanent building that would serve as a gospel outpost and a beacon of hope in our city for generations to come. A place in which we could worship God, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, train leaders, build meaningful relationships, plant churches, and love our city to life.
By God's grace, it is becoming a reality! On December 14th, 2020, we purchased a roughly 24,000 square foot building in the heart of Belltown, just a handful of blocks from where we currently meet. This building was built in 1946 and served as a labor union hall for decades. However, due to the age of the building, it's going to require a complete gut and remodel. This includes everything from seismic retrofitting, to sprinklers, new roof, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, and more.
Once complete, the building will seat approximately 700 people in the sanctuary, provide classrooms for children and adult education, an office level for staff and counseling, and plenty of spaces for our church to worship Jesus and help make disciples.
When we did our due diligence on the building in February 2020 before purchasing it, the renovation estimates came in at about five to six million dollars. However, because of Covid-19, inflation, and the skyrocketing prices of commodities and construction in Seattle over the last two and a half years, our renovation costs have practically doubled to about ten million dollars.
Over the last decade, and by God’s grace, our church has been able to save enough money to cover the downpayment of the property ($3 million), and to date, set aside and raise an additional $5 million towards needed renovations. Although we’ve come up with a plan for phasing the project and also secured an additional three million dollar construction loan to help fill some of this gap, we are still about two million dollars short. There is enough equity in the property that the bank is willing to lend us more money, but it’s our preference not to borrow any more than we need to. Hence this final push.
By God’s grace, we received our construction permit and are finalizing preconstruction details with the city in preparation to sign a contract with our General Contractor to get going as soon as possible. Lord-willing, our hope is that we’d be able to start construction in August.
If you have yet to see the plans and renderings of the project, you can view them here!
DCC, I am looking forward to seeing how the Lord is going to continue showing up, and can’t wait to worship in our new home together with you all!
For the Gospel in Seattle,
Pastor David
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us at .