The Bible is filled with big dreams that affect many lives. Jacob met the Lord in a dream and received a promise for his people. Joseph dreamed big dreams that saved his family. Solomon met God in a dream and was given great wisdom that still affects our lives.
We have a big dream for God’s kingdom which will impact lives for generations to come. We believe our dream connects with God’s dream for His people stated in Acts 2:17: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons & daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”
CCC came into existence in 1863 and has been a light for the gospel in this community for 153 years! In 1995 our current property was purchased and paid for in six months because the dream was so strong in the lives of our people. In August of 2001 we moved into phase one, our current building. Since that time the gospel has been faithfully preached with 149 people being baptized into Jesus Christ and 140 more who became a part of our church family. You may be here because those people cared enough to grow! In 2010 we were challenged to Imagine More by Faith and have almost eliminated our first mortgage.
In 2016 a Strategic Plan was adopted by our church leaders, staff, and congregation. This plan included the dream to make plans for the next phase of our building. As Mark Batterson wrote, “a dream without a to do list is just a wish.” We believe now is the time not only to dream but to build.
Why now? Because...
- Because God is blessing us with continued influx of new families and new members.
- Because our classrooms and hallways are over capacity.
- Because one of our top priorities is friendship and fellowship, we need a space where people can gather informally. Our current building is missing this much needed ingredient.
- Because our children’s classrooms are full and have become inadequate for teaching and for welcoming additional children.
- Because our adult meeting spaces are few and the ones we have are often inadequate.
- Because our current worship space does not accommodate additional people or technology well. The use of this space has limitations even though we have some empty seats. Because of the log-jam in our hallways, and because we have only one entry and exit door, the use of this space suffers.
- Because the population growth is coming toward us from Plainfield as it has for the last 20 years and we want to be better prepared to welcome people to CCC.
- Because we want to continue the dream of being a welcoming place, a place where God’s Word and God’s love are shared, a place where the community is served, and a place where people grow stronger in their families and as a church family.
- Because we feel an urgency to prepare ourselves to minister to our current congregation, but also, to those people whom God will send our way into the next generations.
- Because interest rates and building costs are low but they won’t stay low for long.
For all those reasons we believe now is the time to move forward to continue building this dream that is focused on building the lives of our children, our families, our older saints, and those whom we have not even met. We need to pray, plan, prepare, and yes, raise funds for this project.
Our “to do” list includes these key areas:
- A gathering space that will provide room for a café-like setting to strengthen fellowship and a great first impression.
- A Worship Center with 500 seats that will allow us to expand in multiple worship services.
- A Children’s Center that will provide both a large meeting area and classrooms.
- Transform our current Worship Center for Middle and High School Students.
- Utilize the current building for adult class rooms.
- Utilize the current building for church offices.
- Raise $500,000 to fund the project.
- Project cost: 1.8 – 2.0 million dollars.
- Break ground no later than the Spring of 2018.
We believe our God-sized dream is part of His dream that His followers would go into all the world to preach the good news to every person, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all he has commanded us.”
By God’s grace, let us join our hearts, our hands, our sacrifice and our service to continue BUILDING DREAMS & BUILDING LIVES!!