The Lord Builds

The new Preschool rooms are getting painted today by a team 0f 15+ volunteers. So great!

Preschool Painting Party

There have been lots of questions about the Capital Campaign that’s going on. We’ve compiled the most frequently asked ones into a brochure. If you didn’t get a paper copy of the FAQ, you can download one here. The file was meant to be printed on legal paper, but it should be readable on standard letter size as well. If you’d like a paper copy, there are extras available at the church.

Here’s a video that we put together that shows what we want to do as a part of the capital campaign. The video includes the walkthrough of the basement, as well as some concept drawings for what a new parking lot might look like.

Throughout the Capital Campaign, we’ll be sending out several newsletters and resources. We’ll also be making some of them available for download here. Because they are designed for a commercial printer, some of the margins may be too small when printing at home. You should be able to see everything on-screen, however.

So far, we’ve sent out the following:

• Newsletter 1
• Newsletter 2
• Devotional Booklet

If you’d like to receive print copies of future mailings, send an email to office@firsttrinity.com with a request to be added to the Capital Campaign mailing list.

The painting of hallways and common spaces (Grace, Lobby, etc.) has been finished. There are three different shades of tan in the project. See the pictures below for what the completed work looks like.

The paint will take 30 days to cure. During that time, we’re asking people to not hang stuff on the walls. We are researching options that will allow us to hang things in designated places without ruining the paint job. If you’ve seen a good system, please let us know what it was in the comments.

Christmas decorations are up in the sanctuary. The first picture was taken on a sunny day with the light shining in through the stained glass windows. We’re also in the process of hanging the lighting on the back of the cross. Scroll down for a preview of the lights when they’re on.

Last night, the congregation voted to move forward with a capital campaign to complete category 3 and 4 renovation plans as outlined at the June meeting. Here is the motion that was approved:

WHEREAS, the Voter’s of First Trinity Lutheran Church (“First Trinity”) desire to support mission and ministry at First Trinity through a program to be known as “The Lord Builds” which program plans substantial building renovation and improvement of “Faith” (the Church Basement), provides capital to be used for campus expansion, and eliminates debt to permit greater pursuit of mission ministries; and further

WHEREAS, in order to support “The Lord Builds” it is necessary to raise significant capital; and further

WHEREAS, it has been recommend that the most effective way to raise capital is through the use of an outside capital consultant, and that after an extensive interview process, LCEF Capital Funding Services has been recommended by both the Ministry Council and a special ad hoc selection Committee to fill this role;

NOW THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS:

Based on the recommendations of the Ministry Council and its special ad hoc selection Committee the Voter’s authorize First Trinity to contract with LCEF Capital Funding Services for the amount of $33,000 to facilitate a capital fund campaign.

Painting has begun in the worship center and preschool areas.  Here are some of the pictures from the worship center:

Looking at the side wall of the entryway (Glenhurst Doors). The light tan wall is painted, the others are original color.

The entryway received three different colors, plus the ceiling. This is the same scheme that will be used in the hallways and Grace.

The view from the loft at the North stairwell. The dark tan wall is painted, the lighter wall has not received paint yet. There are two tans used in the loft. The side walls of the loft receive the darker tan, and the back wall will be the lightest.

This is the Cry Room before anything was done.

There are three different blues in the Cry Room. Here you see two of them as painting begins.

A look at the door area with all three blues on the wall.

The finished (but not yet arranged) Cry Room. There will be new curtains coming.

This is the view of the loft from the chancel (everything inside the communion rail) area.

There are five shades of blue in the worship center. This is the middle of the five.

Again, the middle blue of five shades. It's hard to tell, but the section of wall immediately left of the organ (with the A/C unit on the wall) has received the lightest tan color. The other sections of that back wall will all have this color.

Work continues for the rest of the week. The paint job is scheduled to be finished by this weekend.

One of our story statements (and our next “Super Series” by the way…) at First Trinity is “Rooted and Relevant”. We like to think of ourselves as being rooted—both in God’s Word and in the Lutheran Christian Tradition (We’re celebrating 170 years this year)—while still being relevant to the world today. This means that the Scriptures and Christian church throughout history influences our ministry today. We are not a “traditional” or “contemporary” church. We are both.

With this key story statement in mind, we set out to look at improving the projection system in the Worship Center. Here are some of the issues that people have raised to us:

1. The screen is too high for those sitting in the front of the church.
2. It blocks the view of the cross when it’s down.
3. It’s not bright enough (especially since restoring the stained glass).
4. It doesn’t integrate well with the existing architecture.

So we knew what the basic issues were, and we agreed that all were important. But how do we be “rooted and relevant” in this area? Our first step was to find out how the projection system is currently being used, but more importantly, how will it be used in the future. We asked the Executive Ministry Team (Known as the EMT, composed of Pastor Chuck, the four ministry directors, namely Jim Brese [Attract], Mary Lou Hartnett [Care] Sue Steege [Transformation] and Dick McKie [Serve], plus our Ministry Operations Manager, Tim Hartnett) to give us their vision for technology in Worship and other areas of the facility for the coming years.

After reviewing the strategy, we started discussing some options, keeping “rooted and relevant” in our minds as we sought to find the best solution. Here were some of the options we looked at:

• Leave the screen “as-is” and simply get a new projector. This would solve only item 3 above.
• Install large LCD televisions on the side wall. This would solve 1-3 above, but we felt it would still not look “right” in our Worship Center.
• Install multiple screens on the side walls and buy two new projectors. This would address 1-3 and was a better solution for item 4, but we still felt it wasn’t quite right.
• Use the side walls as the projection surface and buy two new projectors. We felt like this would best meet all the needs because when the system is off, you can’t tell it’s there. When it’s on, it’s not detracting from the cross or the architecture of the church while still being visible from everywhere. It’s also farther from any direct light sources which wash out the image.

We debated the merits of LCD vs. projection and decided projection was the obvious choice. It allows us to use 100% of the wall space and looked the best when off. We then explored rear projection vs. front, but after consulting the building blueprints, there’s not room to use rear projection. We also felt it was important to consult with Eric Fesmire, our Contemporary Worship Director, about our proposed solution.

Confident we were on to a possible solution, we scheduled an appointment with Gary Krauss of A/V Solutions to see what was possible and get a quote for the project. We are currently looking for other companies to provide a quote as well.

We’ll also be setting up a test rig that involves ladders, projectors and laptops to see how it would actually look in our building.

It’s been about a month since we posted the new color scheme for our facility, both here on the The Lord Builds and in the lobby. We’re just about ready to begin painting the facility, but before we get to that, a few notes about the painting:

1. We’ve been waiting to get started on the paint project because we wanted to make sure our flooding issues were resolved. Thanks to the recent rain storms, we believe we’ve got the flooding issue under control.
2. Painting will be done in two phases. The first will be the Worship Center, Preschool areas and the main entry (Glenhurst) doors. The second phase will be all remaining public spaces, including hallways, Grace, the Workroom, Lobby and stairwells. We are waiting on an insurance settlement from the flooding before repairing flood damage in the lobby/stairwell.
3. There have been some questions about how the cross will look against the blue wall. We will be adding some subtle LED back-lighting to the cross to make it stand out. It will be a single color (white) and will probably have the ability to be dimmed as needed. We are working with some distributors to gets costs and options.
4. The “IHS” on the wall can not be back-lit because it is flush against the wall. We are looking at options to light it so it also stands out from the wall a bit. We’re leaning towards a mounted light that shines on it, but we’re still considering options.
5. The descending dove and Alpha/Omega symbols are being moved from their existing locations in preparation for painting and a new projection system. The walls where they are located now will become projection surfaces. We are discussing options for their new placement. If you have suggestions, please leave them below in the comments.

Here’s the painting schedule for phase 1:

• Entryway doors: October 12 or 13. If you are using the facility on these days, plan on entering through the gymnasium doors or the boulevard entrance.
• Worship Center/loft/cry room: October 12-16.
• Preschool halls/entries/stairwells: October 15-16.

This means that the paint job in the Worship Center will be finished in time for services on October 17/18. At this time, we don’t have an estimated start time for phase two of the painting project.

EDIT: The paint schedule has been updated. Our paint contractor was able to double-up the crews so we’ll have everything done in one week. Great news!