Brokenness.
That's the word that comes to mind when I think of Casa Grande.
I’ve lived here for 4½ years. It’s a growing rural area, a lot to people are moving here because it has a lower cost of living. a home town feel...and a lot of brokenness.
We're on a mission to do something about it.
Since I’ve lived here, there’s been a couple murders (one story here) of teenagers that go to Union High School, which is right down the street from my house. The police came to a recent football game and kicked everyone out of the stands because of fighting.
The other public high school in Casa Grande is Vista Grande. Their Athletic Director, Louie Ramirez, committed suicide earlier this summer. This fall I prayed with one Vista Grande student to receive Jesus and it was my honor to baptize her a couple months ago.
We just had to knock down the walls of our storage space to make more room for our youth group, but they’ll run out of room again next year at the rate they're growing.
Every Friday we run Calvary Kids Club. The elementary schools are closed on Fridays because they are having a hard time attracting teachers. So we are bringing kids from one of the poorest school districts in Arizona to learn how to read, have fun, and learn about Jesus. Brittany’s kids came to Kids Club and Brittany met Jesus a couple months ago at one of our three Sunday services. Now she and her kids come to church every Sunday and Wednesday.
Every Sunday we hold a service for unsheltered people. We take everything to the park, serve them a healthy home-cooked meal, and take them through a Bible study. I think we can end homelessness in Casa Grande.
We are out of room. We are going to keep moving forward and doing whatever we can to win Casa Grande for Jesus, but if you're reading this now, I want to ask you to help us build a new facility. We are growing at 14% a year so we’re going to hit a wall soon if we don’t do something.
Phase One is a new auditorium. This will help us accommodate our growth and turn our current building into more space for Kids Ministry including more space for our Friday Kids Outreach Program, our youth group, and other ministries. (We own four acres).
Phase One, including all the site work, is going to cost $3.5 million.
Phase Two includes an indoor playground, kitchen, gathering space, café, and offices. We’re calling it CG Commons. This will help us to do a better job of cooking for the homeless, it will give our community a much needed space for parents with kids to get out of the hot Arizona summer sun. The extra office space will help us move towards our goal of ending homelessness by having a mental health center. This phase is approx. 2 million.
Phase Three completes the project with an educational wing that will transform our children’s ministry and give us the capacity to start a school or a day care. Once we move our kids ministry out of our current building, we’ll be able to transform our current sanctuary into a 2,500 square foot youth center that will be open all week. Phase Three will be $3 million.
We’d love to do it all at once. But we are also willing to phase it.
This will be a facility that will be there for our kids and grandkids. It’s an investment that will change lives and will reap eternal rewards.
The total cost is $8.5 Million.
We’ve got an architect and a builder. We are ready to go.
Will you help to fund this?
(Note: If you'd like to give a very large gift please contact me directly.)
