May 6thChin Church: seeing vision becoming reality
Greetings in the wonderful Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
First of all, we want to express our appreciation to the Vietnamese Mennonite Church who let us use their building almost free for the last 9 years. They are open-minded and fulfilled our need at the best they can. Moreover, the location was great because we never have a problem with parking. All members can travel within 5 to 10 minutes from their home. I think the building was so blessed, it was busy and there are lots of activities going on. However, all our ministries have been restricted by renting facilities. Our youth work and women’s ministry have been hardest hit.
The Chin church would like to have more activities in church. We have about 30 Sunday school children and split into four groups each need their own classrooms. We eager to have our own version of VBS and Sunday school retreat program and we think we must have our own facilities to accommodate the need. Our children are growing fast and we need to act fast. Youth group wants to have more times for practising songs, bible study, social gathering, and meeting at church. Every Saturday night, about 10 – 15 women group has always had home-cell pray meeting and meal together in a house, rotating each week to another member’s house. However, it is too crowded and parking is difficult. Also, our women’s Saturday pray meeting was growing because men started joining. We need an even bigger space with more car parking.
Every year our church has invited evangelists or speaker (local and aboard) and organized at least two crusades. In addition, also host several church board meetings, joint meetings, public meetings, leadership training, bible study, and special occasions (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Sunday school day, Christmas and New Year celebrations etc). As part of the culture, we always have three-nights of bereavement services program, which included more than 60 people in a house. With our own building, we can worship and minister more than we do now. We can provide better gospel and stewardship to own growing children. Having our own church building will benefit all members and more importantly, we can extend our ministries to your children, friends, and neighbours. Let us only be all to the glory of God.
Since the beginning of the church, almost 10 years back, the members established a vision to have a church building. Now, we think God is answering our prayer and fulling our dream. We found a very suitable, small worship place in the Sunridge community area in NE Calgary which we have already committed to purchase and have been approved for development permit from the city of Calgary. Our possession date is May 31, 2020. The property value is CAD $750,000 and we roughly estimated the construction will cost between $150,000 - $200,000. We anticipate the renovation project will start from the month of June 2020 and the completion date is June 2021. The reason we chose this property is primarily because it is a great location. All members can travel within 5 to 10 minutes from their home to the church. Second, we think the price is most affordable for small congregations with a tight budget. Lastly, the zoning is good for a small church and so, less government hassles.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we always need your prayers for this dream of having a place for worship to come true. We also need your financial assistance to accomplish the projects. You can support financially for this church building project through the online donation on our church website, https://calgarychin.mcab.ca/giving. Since 2011, the church has formed a church building committee and started saving funds for the building. However, we are still short of budget. The renovation cost will be way higher than we expected. All your donations, even a cent will be meaningful for us. We also invited any who can volunteer in general constructions, all skills tradespeople are most welcome. The details renovation plan, budget, construction scheduled will available soon in https://calgarychin.mcab.ca/news-events.
We will be happy if you can visit our church. When the pandemic outbreak is over, our Sunday school service is between 2 – 3 pm and worship time is between 3:00 – 5:00 pm.
We want to thank you for taking time to read this letter. May God protect you in safe and be healthy during this pandemic outbreak.
Here are some pictures of design floor plan…
