A Review of Our Deep Roots Victory Celebration and our Construction Timeline:
Dear St. Julian's Family:
I want to thank all who joined us for our Deep Roots Victory Celebration on Sunday, May 1 at Whitestone Brewery. It was a glorious occasion! Truly an evening with much to celebrate and much for which to give thanks. In particular, I want to thank Laura and Robbie Tomaszewski, Katherine Lilly and Mel Bland, and Kimberley and Kelly Koonce who served on our Deep Roots Events Committee that organized the celebration.
For those who were not able to join us, I wanted to use this space to share the results of the campaign and our timeline for construction. As you may know from previous announcements and our Deep Roots Launch Party with Antonelli's Cheese Shop back in February, our stated goal for the campaign was $1,200,000. As I said at the event, for a congregation of our size and demographics (35% of us are children), this number represented (in the words of the Rt. Rev. Claude Payne, a previous Bishop of our great Diocese) a BHAG...a Big, Holy and Audacious Goal!
Further, as I said many times during the campaign, success would require all of us participating as we uniquely can, which is and was different for each family or individual. I am so happy to report that this is exactly what our family of faith did. The vast majority of our congregation who give to St. Julian's regularly made an additional 5-year pledge to the Deep Roots Campaign and, those who could not right now, are already giving sacrificially to our annual campaign and in so many other ways through the time and talent they so generously share at St. Julian's. Thus, I can confidently say we all did participate and we, indeed, reached and surpassed our goal by over 12%. As of the Victory Celebration, we had commitments of about $1,350,000. Further, it is my belief that we still could reach $1,400,000 in the coming weeks, as a few of us continue to discern a final gift. If this is something we can help with, please know I am always happy to discuss ways to still participate (just shoot me an email). It is never too late to join in and new and unforeseen needs will always crop up...such is construction life!
With the generous support of our Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle, and the Great Commission Foundation of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, our commitment to the Deep Roots Campaign assures us that we can begin building our Phase I church immediately. And, in fact, we have already begun that work, which leads me to our time-line for completing the project. St. Julian's Design Committee is meeting, even now, regularly with our Architects, McKinneyYork, on the process called Design Development. This will continue through June. Design Development will be followed by the creation of Construction Documents, which will be complete in August. Then we enter the Permitting Phase that will lead to October (this October!), when we will formally break ground. There will be much more information on a service for the ground breaking forthcoming, and I sincerely hope everyone of us will be there. Once we break ground, the construction project led by our General Contractor, Braun and Butler, will take about 61 weeks to complete. Now if you do the math on that, it means that we will be in our new church in December of 2023, which is just about 20 months from now. My sincere hope is we will be celebrating Christmas of 2023 in our new St. Julian's church.
There is much work to accomplish between now and then, and we will continue to call upon you to help with design features like technology and our playground. We will need help with the move, both closing up shop in our current location and preparing the new space. There will be opportunities to invest sweat equity indoors and outdoors, in the new facility and on the land. And, surely this is not an exhaustive list! To this end, I invite you to pay close attention to future calls for help, and, if you have not already, let me know what areas of interest you might have.
And, perhaps most important of all, this new church will require all of us inviting friends and family to join us if we hope to fill it, which is essential to maintaining it and accomplishing our Phase II plans. And, friends, this is the work of evangelism and is why we build, not to give ourselves more space but to make more space for others. For there are countless folk around us looking for a place to love and be loved, a place to serve, a place to encounter the living God who offers hope, purpose, a future, and salvation. We build as an act of proclamation to any and all the Easter love that God has poured into our world through the glorious resurrection of Jesus. And, it is to empower our proclamation of the Gospel, centered in this new church, that the Diocese of Texas is partnering with our commitments to Deep Roots with their own commitment of over $5,000,000 additional dollars to make completing this Phase I building program possible. And, the work of proclamation, done with our words and deeds, will, once again, require all of us. It is all of our work as followers of Jesus. Our community needs our witness, and I am so grateful to share in this ministry with each of you.
If you have any questions about Deep Roots, our Phase I building program, or anything in our shared life, as always, don't hesitate to reach out. I hope this reaches you and yours safe and well.
Peace and Warm Friendship,
Miles+
The Rev. Miles Brandon
Vicar, St. Julian of Norwich Episcopal Church
512-694-7121