This evening I need to provide you with an update about our building project. Normally updates like this come during our morning services. I was in Glenwherry this morning and the next few Sunday mornings are busy because of the Vibe service next Sunday and Easter Sunday the following Sunday.
It’s not ideal that I’m providing this update at an evening service because there aren’t as many here as would be at our morning service but I need to provide the update nonetheless. If you are speaking to someone who isn’t here this evening through the week you could maybe pass the news I am about to share on. What I am about to say will also be available on our church podcast and church website.
Having said all that, let me actually get round to the update itself. Having perhaps sounded like the boy who cried wolf for several months through me saying that the building project was going out to tender soon I am delighted tonight to be able to finally tell you that the project has gone out to tender.
Tender documents were issued on Friday and the return date for those is around 19th May. The Congregational Committee will meet the following week to discuss and decide upon an appropriate tender and contractor.
There are around six weeks between now and 19th May and as you will understand, these six weeks are crucial in terms of how the building project will progress. Once the tenders come back, the Congregational Committee will have a limited timeframe in which to make a decision. Prices are not being held for a particularly long time at the moment and the Committee will not be able to delay.
With that in mind, it is vital that we are supporting the project both in prayer and in terms of finance. I’m not going to speak to the finance side of things tonight. I will perhaps wait until after Easter before doing that again.
But you will remember the update that I provided in January which was to say that unless there is an increase in giving to the building fund the project will encounter grave difficulties. The statistics for 2021 are not yet in but on the information we have, they have not changed in a significant way.
Leaving finance aside for now, though, can I stress to you tonight that we need to be praying about the building project. We are living through difficult economic times. We are living in a time of great uncertainty. We are living in a time of rising food prices, rising energy prices. What we simply need to pray is that when the tenders come back, they come back at a level that we can afford.
There is no doubt that it will be a stretch whatever price the project comes in at. But in the context of the current economic situation, we must pray that tender offers would be favourable and affordable.
That is the update, then. It is very simple and straightforward one. The building project is now out to tender and we need to pray.
The project has never been this far, by the way. This is the furthest it has ever come. We are very close to seeing actual work starting in the manse field. Let me thank you, as always, for your contributions to the building fund. We do not take your contributions for granted and would be delighted if you could help us keep this project moving forward.