Notes provided by Dixon Cartwright

Town Meeting re building for UCG in skating rink in Big Sandy, began approximately
4:25 p.m. on 8-26-01. 

Roy Holladay: Opening remarks, called on Buck Hammer for opening prayer.

Prayer: Buck Hammer

Roy Holladay: After we got back from the council meetings and prior to our son's wedding, there was a meeting of I guess it's called the building committee [which] had gotten together on 2 or 3 occasions to discuss the possibilities, and I guess the people who were there sometimes vary from meeting to meeting. But it was felt that before we try to proceed forward we need to do something and that is to have a meeting like this ...

[Roy gives the reasons for having the meeting on a day other than the Sabbath.]

When Norma and I first came here, one of the first deacons' and elders' meetings we had I brought up the topic of why didn't we have a building, and it didn't go over too well at that point because of the experiences that we had just come out of ... So the time was not proper; it was not right at that point.

So a couple of years went by and then at another meeting we started talking about, well, what should we do? We thought, well, if we're going to have the building, with a couple of years under out belt, it would be nice to have a building, let's go ahead and start a building fund.

And so we did. In hindsight, I would take the responsibility and blame for this. It would have been better for us to have this meeting first and then have a building fund. So I apologize for that ...

When we started talking about should we do this, how do we progress, it was felt that what we need to do is make sure we have the congregation's input and involvement, and we need to be able to consider all the pros and cons; we need to want to do it, to have a consensus and all of us moving forward together, not just a few handfuls of people saying this is what we're going to do ...

Now, since we started a building fund, the council has passed a local church policy, local church building policy, and in looking at this I'm not quite sure, this is 95 percent correct, we did a few edits on this at a council meeting ... This is extremely accurate [even though it is not the final draft of the policy] ... So in discussing this we felt we should put out some type of agenda to give some direction to the meeting we were going to have, and basically what we want to do here, if you'll notice under the objectives of this meeting, is to list--

It's not my duty tonight to do all the talking. We want to listen by providing a forum where anyone who is interested can give his or her input for what we are talking about.

[Discusses the UCG's policy and the] topic of stewardship, to come to a consensus to decide whether to pursue ownership further; the one thing we would like to come out of here this evening is do we want to proceed to pursue this, and if so how to go about it.

[Reads from handout re] specific plan of action ...

So it [the handout] says this meeting is not to be a dry, boring business meeting but rather a lively family discussion, so if it gets to be boring we'll begin to call on different ones to tell a joke.

I want you to notice the box on the right ... Owning a local church building should be a blessing for the entire church. As such, the final decision rests with UCGIA leadership.

Now, when we say it should be a blessing for the entire church, it is not something that we should selfishly say, well, we want to do this ourselves and who cares what impact it has on the church as a whole. We have to realize that anything we do will impact the church as a whole and worldwide, so we don't want to be an island to ourselves without considering the impact on the whole.

This is where the UCGIA leadership comes in, because any plan we put forward has to be approved by the administration, and if that plan is turned down, then comes to the council for review, so the administration, the president, the treasurer, ministerial services, has had a chance to take a look at it, to analyze its impact on not only what we're doing, but the entire church worldwide. So I think that's extremely important to understand.

So giving a little background, to point one on the agenda, concerning the building committee, it would probably be good for someone who's been on the building committee to come forward just to explain to us what has been done up to this point. I've sat in on one meting, but I haven't been involved from the very beginning. Melton, you or Buck want to--?

Buck Hammer: [reports on a meeting of "13 or 14 in the old Moser Clinic" in Gladewater.]

We discussed some different ideas. Several people-- I guess the first thing we need is some land and we've had a number of people looking for land and different things, and if any of you know of land for sale that's suitable for a church and handy, then we'd like for you to speak up tonight, this afternoon, then the next thing is that we've talked about a few people drawing up some plans, and listen to what Mr. Holladay just said.

I know there's a decision whether to have a multifunctional building where we've got a gymnasium in it, some's pro and some's con, but that's something that needs to be decided.

But after hearing this, [I realize that] it may be headquarters that makes the decision for us, but we can tell them what we would like to do.

So that's just about where we are now. Several people have been looking for property and various things. We think we have a plan to help buy some property, and Mr. Melton does have some money in the building fund, but it has been sort of quiet of late, mainly because nobody knew anybody was going to do anything.

And I hope if we are going to do something that we get busy and do it. We can stagnate on the vine here if nobody goes ahead and does this.

I think this is the best effort that's been made so far since we've been a church to ourselves, and I know I have felt like in a couple of cases I walked away from buildings that I had a lot to do with, and I thought I walked away naked, and it's sort of happened all over gain, but I sort of like ownership, and I hope that we can come up with some good ideas and decisions that will be according to God, that He will like what we're doing and have His blessings.

So now I guess I'll turn this back to Mr. Holladay and let all of you begin to speak up...

Roy Holladay: Basically, as Buck said, this group has gotten together and they've been brainstorming and doing a little legwork in looking around for--if we were to build are there any properties that will be suitable?--then also thinking about what type of a building could we build, so in this discussion it became apparent that before we try to proceed, it was important to have this meeting, so this is why again we're here.

The reason I wanted to mention that is that I don't anyone to think that, okay, here's a building committee that they've already got set in stone, everything's already done and all we're here is to rubber stamp, that's not what this meeting is about.

One thing I'd like for us to consider is the local church building policy. Now, we had a copy of this handed out to everyone yesterday. I know everyone went straight home and read it, right?

Well, just in case you didn't, I thought that it would be important for all of us, and I'm not going to read through this word for word, but I do want to hit some of the highlights with you so that we all understand that there is a policy that we have to function within. We cannot just sort of run off out here and do our own thing. There's always been a policy, established in the council, but it was one short paragraph statement, that said submit your plans to ministerial services ... So this elaborates a little more. It takes that same basic policy, elaborates on what should be included, and the steps that you should go through.

So let's notice here the opening paragraph. The mission of the United Church of God an International Association is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ ... [reads from paragraph].

What if every church--let me give you an example--of over 100 in United decided to build a building? There are 27 churches in the U.S. of over 100 in attendance, and each one of those buildings costs $500,000 and the money came from the home office to do that? We're talking about $13 million, something of that nature. Obviously we'd stop functioning as an organization; we wouldn't have any money to pay the ministry, rentals, publish, to do a work. So there has to be a proper balance, we understand.

And in looking at building church buildings, a lot of it, as we will see, is what is the need in the congregation, the local area.

It goes on in this first paragraph talking about we need to be able to provide appropriate meeting facilities for weekly services, then properly allocate funds. It says the church simply does not have the resources to build church halls for all congregations while also working effectively to preach the gospel throughout the world. Now, if we had an income of $50 million or $100 million, that might be a little different.

It says that it is important that United have fair and consistent [quotes from paper] ... buildings.

This is the premise for what we're discussing.

  Now, you'll notice the next paragraph, that if it has been determined that no adequate facility exists for [quotes from paper] ... after a search for properties ... the congregation may pursue other options ...

  In other words, if we begin this process, we don't do it in a vacuum. What we do, we let Ken Giese know as our regional pastor, we keep Richard Pinelli constantly informed in ministerial services so we don't just spring up overnight and say here it is. They know we're thinking in this direction.

  Notice it says if there are no adequate facilities. We have a facility we meet in, the convention center, as we know. Obviously it is adequate. But it is not adequate in another sense ... But as you realize here recently we have begun to run into more and more of a problem ... and the normal facility we go to when we're bumped is the Yamboree hall, yet several of our members can't come to the Yamboree hall because of the mold. They just generally stay at home because of that.

  Now, will this continue to be a problem? ... At the start of the year I go to the convention center and I give them a list of all of our dates, and we sit down and she pencils us in the book. Then she says we've got bookings on these days. So we get the Yamboree hall. Now, normally that's been about 6 or 7 times in the spring, then about 3 or 4 times. It's probably about once out of every 6 Sabbaths, 5 Sabbaths, something like that.

  But what's happened, especially this year, we have started to be bumped. Now, I understand where they come from on that. If they can book somebody in and charge them a lot more than they're charging us, then they have concessions and other things, they're trying to make money ... [On the other hand] we view it from the point of

 view we're a steady customer; we probably pay you more than anybody; why are you bumping us?

  But the bottom line is that we have this situation.

  I've been in this situation in the past in a number of church areas. In Chicago we used to have to book three halls for every holy day. Now, we had 2,000 people ... We had to book 3 because we would always be bumped, at least 1 of them, and generally 2 of them ...

  Our present facility is adequate in that it holds us, but from a speaker's point of view it's very inadequate. Anyone who speaks, leads music and so on knows that the bottom floor seats 450 people. You speak and you look at the center and there are about 20 people sitting in the center and they're all scattered out, most on the right. The next biggest

group is on the left ... There's no cohesion. You don't feel like you have contact.

  We were in Longview recently meeting. People are right up close, and you sing and you can actually hear somebody else singing ...

  Those are some of the drawbacks ...

  Dropping on down, it says also this option must be weighed carefully ... [quoting] ... best interests of the congregation and the church as a whole.

  So what we are doing here and if the decision is made for us to continue to pursue this, and let's say we're given the green light to do so, it has to be a decision that is for the best of the church as a whole, not only just considering our needs but the needs of the church.

  There are steps, then, we have to go through. These are laid out here.

  The question was asked at our meeting the other day: Could we purchase property first and then go ahead and submit a plan?

  You notice step No. 1: Prior to purchasing property. I think that indicates that [when] ... entering into an agreement to build, a thorough financial document of the details and the costs to the congregation and the church as a whole must be prepared [quoting].

  The question was, what if something just popped up, a special deal, [so] couldn't we just go ahead and buy it because it might just pass us by? Well, what we've got to do is get our ducks in order first ...

  Secondly ... [quoting].

  In some cases-- For example, the Terre Haute church bought a building and remodeled it. They got a very good deal that way; they followed that particular line ...

  There are 8 points of things that should be included in this report. So those are clearly outlined here.

  Step 3: Responsibility for evaluating the proposal will be made by the president in consultation with the church treasurer. Why? He's the one who knows what the budget is, the money flow, the impact it might have on the church, the church's attorney and director of ministerial services ...

  Then it says if the decision is going to be made basically by all of the parties in consultation with the president, he will inform the local pastor of the decision, then the local pastor will pass it on.

  But if our request is turned down, then it will go to the council of elders.

  Now, do we have any friends on the council of elders? [Laughter.] No, we can't do that. I would actually have to recuse myself. I would have to step aside from any balloting on this ...

  But we felt that this was a safeguard we wanted to put in there ...  Ownership: In order to ensure that the local church's assets are protected, all approved local church buildings must be held in the name of the United Church of God an International   Association, the religious nonprofit corporation. The local congregation may request a guarantee ... [quoting].

  This is done for the protection of the church, because if this is something that we do, obviously much of the funding is going to come from the church. We won't have to worry about a local congregation running off with the building. If something were to happen to the local church, the corporation has the asset it could use.

  But we would always, as long as we were a faithful, loyal congregation, it's our building to use as we see fit.

  So the ownership is something that we felt should be in there.

  Let's go on over to current established building funds. As part of this policy [quoting] ... within 90 days to the secretary ...

  We've gone beyond 90 days, but I wanted to have this meeting first to have something to report.

  If a local congregation has a local building fund and they don't have any concrete plans, they can simply submit a statement. We have done this; we hope to build in the future; we don't have any concrete plans; as they come along we'll let you know and keep them up to date ...

  Long-term building funds without a definite plan [quoting] ... are not in the best interests of the congregation ...

  So that's the basic policy. Do we have any questions? Is there anything you have a question about I can clarify? ...

  Let's proceed.

  As you'll see under point No. 3, I hope all of you brought your agendas or have one somewhere close to you: [quoting] ... Can ownership of a local church building further the mission of the church? What is our mission? The mission of the church is to preach the gospel to the world, make disciples and care ... [quoting].

  So can owning a local church building further that mission?

  Now, by my saying this I'm asking the question.

  Dael Baughman: I certainly think you can. Just last week we had 3 families show up in Gilmer for church [not realizing the congregation would meet that Sabbath in Longview]. That adds confusion. Somebody doesn't get the word. If you're talking about the overall mission, I think you can do that as well. If you have stronger individuals in the congregation, that makes the whole group stronger.

  This has happened a number of times. I worked in Longview for about 40 years ... I've lost count of how many people came up to me and said you attend that church over in Big Sandy, don't you? Do you drive all the way over there for church? No, we've had our own church in Longview since '67. Well, where do you meet? The North Loop Cinema. [Laughter.] That's not a very good example. ...

  [Re a large incoming making possible the construction of local-church buildings:] When we had $200 million a year, we didn't have any money for buildings, and now--

  Roy Holladay: One of the things in looking at this and considering it-- ... You see, the figure I'm about to give you, please don't hold me to it, we pay $300 a week, so 4 meetings a month, that's $1,200. You factor in the holy days, we've got 5 local holy days. We've got that money. Now, we were also taking a look, and, Melton, you look at socials, activities, we go out and rent a facility and we use that facility, such as this facility here. I don't think they gave it to us free. We might spend $500 on rentals and other related expenses, whereas if we had our own hall we could use that facility.

  What I'm saying is we spend somewhere between $1,500, $1,600 a month. Now, if we can build a facility and our payments do not exceed what we're paid, as we pay normally for rental, then there's no reason why you couldn't build, because you're not necessarily spending more. So what we have to do, if we're going to do this, we've got to make sure that we stay within that. If our cost would jump up to 3 or 4 thousand dollars a month, we've added a burden to the finances of the church ...

  Any other thoughts concerning the mission of the church?

  Morris Foster: As long as our attitudes are right, I'm sure there's a lot of benefit to the mission of the church to getting the gospel out and not neglecting our young people who have grown up in the church. Mr. Hammer mentioned something the other day, he mentioned about some tapes he has about the possibility of having some classes or some type of a success club for the young people. I think there could be a lot of benefits in a number of ways. Maybe if it were a multiuse building, maybe for sports too, but even without sports just facilities where different groups in the church could get together for different purposes that tie in with the mission of the church.

  Steve McNeely: I told myself I was going to sit down and listen ... I look around this room or in the church services, I see where all the ... individual lights are shining out in the world, and I think what we could do if we could focus that light. A building per se isn't going to do that, but a building could be a way we could take perhaps a burlap sack off our light and allow it to shine in local communities ...

  God has used personal relationships to bring a lot of people into fellowship with Jesus Christ over the years ... I think maybe you could think of some ways where in this community we could use a building as a means to further the gospel, not just a better place to meet or a nice place for the kids ...

  In that way [we could help] to grow the Church of God, and this could be a part of that.

  Roy: We don't want [to use] the term "grow the church" to get out in the sense of how Worldwide used that term. They talked about how we grow a church; we know that God calls. But the better example we are, obviously the better we'll be able to do that.

Again, the mission of the church is to preach the gospel. Now, can a building help us preach the gospel?

  Well, it can in the sense of our young people; we talk about our future is our children, and when you look at the United Church of God and you see how many young people we have, if anything we can do can help them remaining in the church and come along--

  I'm looking on this front row at young people. What if in the next 5 or 10 years they're all baptized? How many magazines would we have to send out to get that many people, and they're already here if God is working with them? That's one way.

  We have to realize, and I could ask the question, how many people showed up in Big Sandy because we had Ambassador College there and we had a facility and started to attend with us? How many people started attending in Pasadena because we had what we called the house of God there, the auditorium? I don't think there were that many people who saw it and were awestruck ... But it did give a stability in the community.

  Our mission is threefold: preach the gospel, make disciples ... But another thing is simply caring for those disciples, and to me this is where a facility, if you have it you can use it throughout the week, you can help care for people, from all kinds of activities.

  Pat Creech: Would we be able to use the building for emergencies, like we had this last winter, when all the electricity went out?

  Roy: We could use it any way we want to. Yes. It could be a facility used that way, especially if we got a generator.

  Scott Hammer: I view the building as just a tool, a tool we can use in many, many different ways. We don't even know at this point exactly all the various ways we would use this tool, but it would be a pragmatic, practical thing for the church to do, if we have sufficient funds to have this tool at our disposal, to be able to use for name recognition in our local area to have a foundation of where we meet with people, where people could find us, to be a tool for education, for young people, if we do decide to go with a combination building ...

  We don't need to build a glamorous sports dome that we could use for church on the side. I don't agree with that concept, but I think a multifunction building can really serve the congregation so many different ways that we haven't even imagined yet, to give us stability, name recognition. We can invite other congregations to join us; we don't have that ability now at all ...

  I think it would give us a lot of flexibility. If we can afford it and we can come to a consensus, I think we should pursue it. But we ought to ask everyone's opinion.

  There may be people here that say why do we need a building? We've had buildings in the past. If the kingdom's coming in 2 or 5 years, this is just a waste of money. We have a perfectly fine facility to meet in ...

  I don't really think that opinion is a bad opinion. If you hold it, I'd like you to share it with us ...

  Frank McCrady: I've been listening to some of the comments, and I agree with Dael and Scott. I've rented quite few buildings in times past ... I think people have been very disappointed as: Where do you meet? In southeast Houston. Where? Well, in a building? Which building? Well, the Bellaire Ballroom. Well, isn't that a honkytonk?

  [The Bellaire Ballroom smells like] they poured booze and vomit all over it. We had to go in and clean it up before services. Cleaning up and smelling it sort of takes way some of the aura of the sermon ...

  We've met in theater buildings where you have to scrape the gum off your shoes ... I don't mean we have don't have good taste. I have good taste. I married a fantastic woman.

  But some people don't have the sensibility we already have, right? Now, if you've got a permanent address, if it's clean and the people are responsive, setting the right kind of example, it's conducive to having others come back ...

  If it comes to a building and we can afford it, I certainly agree, but not go too far in debt. You have air conditioning, water, electricity. You might pay $1,500 for the building, but what about that other $600 or $700 for other expenses? You don't go to war without talking into consideration getting advice. I'm like Steve. I'll just show up.

  Scott Hammer: Just one more comment. I don't think that we should view building a building as an end in itself, that everyone will stay in the church or attract ex-members or do any grandiose thing. The church is a spiritual body. The building will be where we meet.

  We have a building, just down the road here, and they have consistently lost membership, and their building is not nearly as full as it was a couple of years ago. So having a nice facility doesn't mean that everyone's going to be attracted.

  The religion is the main thing we should concern ourselves with. If we build a building that serves our needs, it will be conducive to a communal atmosphere in the church that will be very positive.

  Roy: Count the cost. Obviously when you own something, when you rent something, they pay the utilities. When you do [the owning], you have to pay the utilities ...

  In talking with Jim Franks about the building they built over in Houston, he says the bottom line is it always costs more than you think ...

  It was thought that it would be good for us in our thinking that the church has a mission, and if we have a building where does that fit in that mission? Everything we do within the council, as an example, we have to start with our mission statement. That's what drives us-- so our mission, and then how does this fit into the mission? All of us need to be aware of that. We don't want to do something that's outside of the building policy ...

  But that brings us down to--we've already touched on this a little bit. What are the pros and cons of owning building? ...

  There are obviously pros to having a building, legitimate reasons why. And there are cons. And we need to consider both. You can't just hide your head in the sand and say, okay ...

  Dick Hegna: [referring to pros and cons regarding location.] I think that would be up for review, where it's going to be. I think that would be a factor.

  Roy: Yes, we're going to come to that ... If somebody in Athens gave us 10 acres to build on, it's not good location ...

  [The following is based on the lists Steve made up from comments from the floor. The first paragraph gives the pros, the second the cons.]

  Pros: Stability; ability to have use of the building all week long, not just on Sabbath; fixed costs; easier to set up and take down; upkeep is also a pro (if it's not clean it's our fault); makes us stronger as a family than we are (a project that helps us work together); a home, not just a house; less damage (because of carrying fewer items around); dedication and hard work and commitment; people can move to the geographical area near the building and retire and know the building will still be there; yard work can help people work together (a lot of the cons could become pros because they will help us work together); the church would be building equity; a place for used clothing; library; toy exchange; help serve each other; a church home to better serve the community (opportunities for outreach); room for classes (through the week) for tots; could host other church areas for camp-outs and other activities; rooms for anointing and for the handicapped; breakout rooms; counseling rooms; a Feast site.

  Cons: upkeep, vandalism, security, insurance, expense of furniture and facilities, the dedication and hard work and commitment to make it happen, metal chairs less comfortable than padded chairs, opposition to certain building designs (you can't make everybody 100 percent happy with what you're going to do).

  Aaron Dean: [Aaron commented on a 20-year loan with the principal amount of $175,000. Right now what the church is paying for the rented hall would cover a $175,000 mortgage.]

  Lee Stolley: There's only 2 questions: One is what is the minimum size we want, and the main thing is how much it's going to cost, and can we afford it?

  Nancy Case: When are we going to decide that that's what we want to do?

  Frank McCrady: Where does the money come from? From the local congregation, from sales, contributions, pledges? Where does it come from? Some of us can't make a down payment on a free lunch. Some of the older people here are on a fixed income.

  Lee Stolley: What is the minimum size? [Mentions possibility of passing out a questionnaire to church members.] ... There's a number of questions we could ask [on a questionnaire]. But everyone that's here is obviously 100 percent for this. The pros far outweigh the cons. It all depends on do we want to do it, can we do it, how much money will it take, and where will you get it?

  Roy: We're drifting into the next section here that we want to discuss.

  Joanne Gonzalez: What is the maximum size that we can get for the funds that we can have?

  Morris Foster: Could we ask specifically if there is any opposition to it?

  Roy: Let me just ask, and again I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot, because whether somebody's for it or not for it one way or another doesn't make you a good person or a bad person ... We have approximately half of the congregation here, which speaks well to the fact that we're well represented ...

  Scott Hammer: I would just say that if we had a wonderful situation where we had a rental property always at our disposal ... then probably we'd be better off renting. But barring having that available, we have to look at other alternatives ...

  Roy: When Norma and I first came here, a considerable amount of our time during the first year was taken up in looking at buildings already built. Buck and I went out looking at some property. When I came here I was open to anything as far as can we find a better place to rent. And I've looked at Gladewater, Big Sandy, Hawkins and all these areas. Ann Elliott and we went around looking at various facilities just from a Realtor's perspective, and we looked at--

  I don't know how many days we spent and hours looking at things, and where we are, unless we wanted to go to Longview or Tyler and rent a facility like we have in Longview in a motel, where we are is about the nicest thing that I've been able to find that we've come up with ...

  In Bethlehem, Pa., they have a facility where they started out as United. It was free. So why would they go buy something else? It was sort of a community room that was used by a church, and the pastor said we can't charge you. After a while they [the United congregation] began to feel guilty, so they started paying them a token [amount].

  Where do we get the money? We have 3 sources.

  No. 1, fund raising. The Houston congregation for about 2 to 3 years before they built had fund raisers. They raised $25,000 to $30,000 a year, and they did it by selling fruit basically.

  Secondarily is contributing to the building fund. Right now we have $16,000-plus in the building fund. That, as someone said, has sort of stagnated at this point because we've not had a definite plan.

  The third way funds are going to come is from our monthly rent funds paid from the home office, and basically what we do, we submit a yearly budget, we have a finance committee that Melton heads up. We submit a yearly budget, and we receive a quarterly subsidy from the home office ... But we wouldn't want to double or triple that because that would be self-defeating.

  So if we could locally come up with the money to purchase the property, 5, 6, 8 or 10 acres or whatever, if we're going to have property, why not buy enough for a ball diamond, outdoor volleyball courts, a number of things? ...

  The price that has been kicked around, these are figures that we've thrown out, we could build a facility for approximately $350,000, we're looking at. How much of that could be perhaps, if everybody got involved and donated some time and effort, you might be able to reduce that down to maybe a $250,000 figure...

  Morris Foster: I talked to John Paul Tallent this past week, who built the rodeo building in Gladewater, and it is 8,000 square feet. Several of us have been kicking around some different floor plans, trying to project a potential cost. I consider that the rodeo building is kind of the low end of what we should do. I think it would be a big mistake to build too small a building...

  John Paul Tallent felt like we could build it for around $30 a foot. That's no profit, just cost of building. For that [the rodeo] building, roughly $240,000.

  Should it a be a multiuse building or strictly for church services? I drew up a preliminary plan; it's just a little over 10,000 square feet, large enough for a junior-high basketball court ... 10,350 square feet, so if you put $30 a foot on that, roughly $300,000.

  That's finished out, similar to the rodeo building.

  Lee Stolley: [Asks if that includes the kitchen and accouterments.]

  Morris: I don't know. I would recommend not getting commercial kitchen equipment ... We could use basic inexpensive residential type ranges. I have drawn in here two ranges, a large sink, an average kitchen sink, bar sink, then dishwashers, residential ...

  Steve McNeely: A ... lease vs. buy analysis ... all comes down to bean counting ... But we look at the pros we've listed here. How do you put a price on being able to serve each other better, to keeping our youth closely tied to the church, on having a positive light in the community? I'm not saying that we should go open ended and hog wild, but we could build a building to meet in for $100,000 or less. But the point is if it's important to us to do these other things, then how are we going to meet these goals? Will it take a little bit more effort for all of us? Might it take a little longer to build this building?

  Morris: It is extremely important to have a plan and a cost and to be extremely cautious not to go over that cost, because that could be disastrous. On the other hand, I think we'd be surprised how much donated labor and other things we could get ...

  Joanne Gonzalez: Let's have a multifaceted building, but start out with a shell, then as we have the donated labor we can work towards the multifunctional building that we are wanting ...

  Rod Gehrke: If we're in a rural area, can a septic system handle it? Also a water well, parking lot, access roads? So the building itself may cost $350,000, but we may have to spend another $50,000 or $75,000 outside the building ...

  Morris: [Speaks of importance of right attitude and approach.] Otherwise it could become very divisive.   Melton: My history with the church goes way back to 1962 or early '63 when I started to work in the church business office. It was really quite an interesting experience to see what was happening at that time, and nobody knew how many bills and where they were and didn't have a budget ... I'm glad we've grown to the point where we consider all the aspects ... We've talked about church buildings for so many years, and basically I'm glad we didn't build church buildings through the years, because we would have lost those too ...

  But in United we have a system that should protect us from that type of thing recurring, so I feel confident that we can go ahead, and I hope in United we do begin to build church buildings ...

  If we had had church buildings in Worldwide, we could have had a lot of church buildings paid for by many years ago. Everybody thought everything was going to end, so we dumped a lot of money into Plain Truth magazines through the years that didn't say anything, unfortunately ...

  That's not the case in United, because The Good News says a lot ...

  It [a building] really would be a strong influence in bringing this congregation together. We have such a wonderful group of people. We're pretty much united. We're in agreement, not on everything but in a lot of things, and I think we feel pretty strongly that we want to go forward and do the best we can for our congregation and for everyone involved ...

  I have heard comments that if we had a plan I'd be happy to contribute to the building fund ...

  So, if we do make decisions to go forward, I think we will receive some contributions ... By the way, some of the widow ladies do contribute, and we have contributed ...

  If we can raise maybe $100,000, that means only about another $180,000-something [already have $16,000].

  Oftentimes when we have a fruit sale, I'd rather try to make a donation rather than spend the time selling fruit ...

  I would hope that the home office would be willing to help us if we come up with a good plan to maybe match some of the money that we raise ... I'd like to see us make that request ...

  They say the Houston building ended up costing something like three quarters of a million if you count all the volunteer help ...

  They had one person who threw in $125,000, I understand, which got them started off in the right direction, and I think one person donated the air-conditioning system down in Houston ...

  If we can keep the payments somewhere around $1,500 or $1,600, I think it would be of tremendous benefit for the local church and the organization as a whole.

  Pat Stewart: Are we ready to put a survey out for the membership or have sign-up sheets for various committees that we need?

  Roy: We're getting there ... From what I've been able to see so far this evening, the majority of the group here is in favor of the building.

  Actually, that was going to lead to another section here. We've talked about this, but again I think we need to consider the pros and cons of it. There are basically 2 types of buildings you can build. One is a regular church type building: a meeting room, kitchen, offices, and that would be it. Or you could have a multifaceted facility so that you could use the auditorium for other activities. It's been suggested possibly a gym, but it doesn't just have to be a gym. It could also be used for dances sand other activities.

  I think if we were going to proceed along, then I think the question is what kind of a building would we like to have? ...

  Nancy Case: I am very strongly opinionated that we need a multifaceted building. Just an idea: We decide we need room for at least 300 people to sit for services, and that's big enough for a half-court basketball court, just someplace where they could have a couple of baskets to set up to play basketball and volleyball, because I think our youths are very important ...

  Joanne Gonzalez: I also much prefer a multifaceted building. But if cost [is an overriding factor], we could still do sports outdoors ...

  Morris: Just kind of pulling figures out of the air, I would estimate that to have a basketball court with hardwood floors, we would probably expect to spend at least an additional $60,000 and possibly considerably more than that. Personally I don't have an opinion one way or another regarding a basketball court ...

  Eric Case: I too am very much in favor of a multifunction building, but I'm very opposed to the hardwood floor--brown mats everywhere, having to keep ladies' heels from wrecking it. There's no reason for a hardware floor. There's an abundance of floor surfaces out there that will meet our needs ...

  Jean Shipman: Why don't we just have a plain, sample building with a concrete floor we can have church in? ... It's not like we have to have anything fancy. A gym doesn't have to be shellacked and stuff.

  Morris: I was encouraged to hear the last 2 comments, because the biggest single expense in a gym is the hardwood floor. If we can eliminate that, it will be a lot more doable. ...

  Steve: There is a midpoint ... Concrete is not a good idea, but there's a ton of floors [available] ...

  Pat Creech: One of the colleges I went to had the rubberized floor, and it was really great for playing basketball, tennis. I was just wondering how much would a rubber floor cost ... in comparison.

  Loren Weinbrenner: Vinyl tile can be laid from $10 to $35 a yard.

  Roy: Back to the question: multifaceted vs. a regular building. If you could have either one, and let's say cost is not really the overriding factor, which would you prefer?

  [At this point Roy asks for a show of hands. From this reporter's point of view, it looked like almost everyone voted for the multiuse building and at least one--maybe one or two--raised his hand in favor of a nonmultiuse building.]

  Roy: One of the reasons for this meeting: Do we want to move ahead and continue to do projections to see what a building would cost?

  Ray: If you had a smaller congregation, you could see the congregation instead of seeing the congregation being spread all over a basketball floor. It would be cheaper. You could [also] build a shell for a recreational building ... I think build what you need for the congregation for services and have each separate, with just a shell for recreational purposes.

  Dael Baughman: I'm sort of thinking this same way. We could do sort of a composite. Heating and cooling will be more expensive in a multipurpose building because of the high ceilings. We don't necessarily have to have an air-conditioned gym. If you had a smaller reasonable sized building that would seat our congregation, and a little bit extra and make it fairly nice, then you could have more of a shell type with just heat only and still use it 6 months of the year for potluck, dancing, socials, whatever. You could always add air conditioning [later] ...

  Rod Gehrke: I like the idea of a multipurpose building, but you need to consider basketballs marring the walls. You're raising the ceiling by approximately 50 or 100 percent. You've got twice the space to heat and cool ...

  Plus you're going to be taking down and putting up the chairs every week.

  We've all played outdoor basketball and volleyball. Put it in your plans to build a shell for a recreation building, make part of your parking lot with basketball goals in it, and, when you have the chance, put your [recreational] building up over it and your floor would already be there ...

  Eric Case: Well, I guess I would disagree with Rod and Mr. Baughman in that that we do need an air-conditioned gym ... But the bottom line I'm looking at is, if we consider a building, we're on average 130 people, sometimes pushing that ... So if at some point we ever maxed out to 180 people with a few visitors, maybe close to 200, you could always add in a few extra chairs between people, so we're looking at seating for 300.

  If you're looking at seating for 300, you're looking at 8 foot aisles between the chairs. The size of the auditorium is going to be a half-court gym. That's the size of a building. As far as marring the walls, the idea is to get around that by putting carpet 15 feet up on the walls ...

  Kristine McNeely: I remember when I was in YES and really little and I could not wait until third grade because that's when you started playing basketball. In public school you don't start that stuff until 7th grade. But not just for us but for the youths younger than us, it would give them a chance to start at a younger age to learn sports and teamwork ... Just the feelings you get and a sense of teamwork from playing basketball when you're young, it's worth it, I think.

  Ellis Stewart: I'm for the multipurpose building. Multipurpose would mean that that area would be used for more than one thing. Now, if you were using that for just church services, that would be once a week. You could have Bible studies in there. But to me a multipurpose building means that you would have to take up chairs but you could use it for many things. So that's my feeling, that it's not going to be hard to take up 300 chairs.

We've taken up 2,500 out in the field house [on the Ambassador campus] and it wasn't all that hard when you had people working together ...

  If we're going to have potlucks, where are you going to have them? You're going to have to utilize all the space for a lot of things ...

  Morris: Those two comments about the size of the auditorium are true ... We can leave 160 chairs set up and use the remaining space for other things.

  Terry Shipman: We met in a hall in Kansas City, the UCG church, and they had one big room, but they had it closed off and set it up like a cathedral type setting. In the back where the gym was, they had room to play volleyball, then the kitchen off to the side. I thought that was a really nice setup.

  Scott Hammer: I agree with Terry. I would hate to see us build a building for the greater glory of basketball. I've played basketball in the church in Imperial on concrete and in every kind of condition, and my kids did, and I don't think it's a criterion of whether your kids are going to stay in the church or not. We have a long history of playing basketball in the church, but it's not an end all to itself, playing basketball. If we have a multipurpose building, I think that's what we need to focus on, and make sure we've got room for church, meetings, dances, inviting additional churches, and have some functional areas for recreation and not build a basketball court that we can have church in by the way ...

  Buck Hammer: There is one thing we talked about: air-conditioning costs. You can't air-condition 6 or 8 feet and not do the whole building. Use a pitch on the roof where you have a high ceiling out in the center [but a low ceiling around the sides] and save on air-conditioning costs.

  I think the thing to do, we could work on what we could save money on and still come out and have an adequate building ...

  I'm for a 40-year loan and pray that Christ comes much earlier.

  Joanne Gonzalez: When I think of a multiuse building, I think of a building with a gym ... For chairs, maybe some like what they have in Gilmer: those bleachers that go back and forth. They probably are outrageous [in price], but something like that might help seating ...

  Lisa Shipman: I agree [that] ... the gym would be a lot nicer. But, with a half court, you would have to rent another gym anyway for tournaments. It just seems more practical for outdoor basketball goals, because if we had a half court we wouldn't be able to have tournaments on it ...

  Steve: Strike that from the record.

  Jean Shipman: I would like to make a motion to stop and eat dinner.

  Roy: It is getting a little late here ... I'd like to throw one other thing out, then summarize ... That is concerning the possible location. We've been looking in the Gladewater area and the Big Sandy area, and when you look at where our concentration is, we have something like 25 to 28 families in the Big Sandy area, about 16 or so in the Gladewater area, 12 to 14 in the Hawkins [area], so somewhere between Hawkins and Gladewater seems to be a natural location.

  One thing we wanted to throw out here was if any of you know of properties, know of a good deal, or if you have any ideas concerning location ... probably Big Sandy's in the middle, and Gladewater would be the next probably most desirous, but some of that may come back to location, the cost, what kind of a deal we could get, a number of these types of factors.

  So what I'd like to ask all of you to be thinking about is, with so many people living scattered all over, if you know of any properties or anything that might be positive property, if you could convey that to Buck Hammer, Buck has been sort of heading up and looking at various properties, then he and his crew could take a look at it. When you've got 4 or 5 people looking, you've got lots more eyes and ears ...

  It seems clear that some type of a multifaceted building seems to be what most people favor over just a regular building. But I think we need to again to get some costs and find out what would be the difference in the cost between those.

  Now, we have up here one blueprint that was drawn by Morris. We've had several others, one I think from Dael Baughman. I think Nancy Case and others have done some [work on this] ...

  There are a few properties that have been looked at in the Gladewater-Big Sandy area ... I think what we need to do from here is to put together a survey that we bring to the whole congregation in which we touch on some of these points that we've been discussing here, and so that we get the feedback from everybody ...

  We'll try to put a survey together. Lee and Scott and Steve, if you don't mind, and anybody else who would like to help to put their heads together ... we're probably looking at Sept. 8 for doing this [taking a survey] ...

  If we as the congregation do move ahead--I think we will--then we're going to have to come back to our plan here, I mean our local church building policy, and kick in at Step 2 because we already have the funds set up, and begin to put together some information that we can present to the congregation, but you'll notice one of the questions down here is that the church pastor will clearly define the roles and responsibilities that the building committee and local congregation will play in the process ...

  We need to have a search committee for property, a committee that will come up with costs, design, some of these other factors. Then we would like to get as many people in the congregation to volunteer to assist them and put this together ...

  We won't be able to get this all together until sometime after the Feast. It would be nice to have a meeting in December with the council ...

  I mention December because if we're turned down there will be a council meeting in December and we could go from there.

  Does this sound like a plan? ...

  We have a gentleman who's a general contractor who told me: You give me the type of building you want to build, square footage, and I can tell you in half an hour within a few dollars how much that building's going to cost. He said he would design a building for us. He's willing to do this for us free. He has all of the computer programs ... And if we wanted him to, he could give us 2 or 3 designs that we could take a look at, and he could give a rough cost factor, then we could take it and look at it more locally ... So I think we can move forward ...