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Vision Statement
“So we built the wall, and all [of it] was joined together to half its height, for the people had a heart and mind to work.” Nehemiah 4:6 (AMP)
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews said, “Now faith is the substance (the thing we stand upon) of the things hoped for,” and that faith, Paul tells us, “comes by hearing.” Several years ago, we accepted the Father’s invitation to build a larger sanctuary and to concedeour present auditorium to our youth and their ministry. A few years later we embraced the prophetic exhortation to see the new sanctuary as an Apostolic Center for Kingdom Transformation. Archimedes, the famous mathematician once said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” In the moment we received that word, we found our “place to stand.”
Faith With Corresponding Actions
The proper response to hearing from God is to believe what He says; and the appropriate response to believing God is to do what He says. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by a word from God. With that “word,” God released in our church a concrete, substantive goal that captured our vision for the future. Now we are able to envision how generations to come will be impacted, not just by a building, but also through a virtual energy center over owing with the vitality of enthusiastic believers. These will be persons from every walk of life who we will equip to become change agents in a world that is desperately in need of transformation. We believe that this is a divine mandate, and it demands for us to see beyond a one-generation approach to ministry.
As the founder of this ministry, I can honestly say that this is one of the most significant and thrilling periods in the life of this church. We have been preparing for this moment for almost two decades and we hold our future and our destiny for generations to come in our own hands. I am truly excited about our potential to gather the lost and the broken from every walk of life and together with them raise up an army of believers who can capture the imagination of an entire city by its passion for God. We will be able to minister to and care for all of those who God sends us. Ministry to our children and youth will be greatly enhanced as they are taught and challenged in the spacious areas that are equipped to engage their imaginations.
I Can Only Imagine
Imagine streams of people from every race, culture, class and gender encountering the Presence of God in worship, music, teaching, and the arts, in a building specifically designed to be a tool for global evangelism. Imagine with me, thousands of lives all over the world being radically altered as we reach out to them from this strategic location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Completing the construction on the Apostolic Center will enable us to utilize the power of the Internet to hold teleconferences with delegates from virtually anywhere in the world! Our challenge is to realize that a massive vision must be accompanied by a magnificent faith, and that this stewardship campaign will take Covenant Church of Pittsburgh to another level in reaching our goal for a completed worship center.
In this season of favor, we are asking all of our members to step forward with us into a new realm of faith – both personally and corporately. We are inviting our friends and supporters in the United States and around the world to join us in prayer, faith and generosity. We believe that Jehovah-jireh, the One who has promised to provide every thing we need to ful ll His desire for this great task will display His power and blessing on this assignment.
Opportunities
Our next major step in this magnificent effort is to complete the second stage of our construction efforts. We need to erect the steel that will support the remaining wall structures and the roofing system. When the building is fully enclosed we will perform the necessary work to finish the 3000-seat sanctuary, prayer tower and chapel. In this phase, our worship center will be fully furnished with seating, staging, state of the art sound, video and multimedia, sound systems. The Apostolic Center for Kingdom Transformation will be primed for ministry and fully equipped for broadcasting our message and exporting globally our ministry. Our construction manager is very excited that we can actually complete this portion for 3.5 million dollars less than a year ago, and we are wondering what other surprises the Father has in store for us. Our goal for this segment is now reduced to 15 million dollars – and we are more than confident that we can achieve this faith step with the Father’s favor.
We have already spent several million dollars to prepare the ground with the site work that was necessary in order for us to proceed with the construction of the sanctuary itself. During this time God has assured us again and again, that He is with us and that we will see His miraculous hand in this next phase. I want to encourage every member and friend of Covenant Church to pray about a sacrificial commitment over and above our tithes, for the next three years. We have the people, we have the faith, and we have the God of the impossible. Through Him, we can accomplish all of this and even more as together we “Imagine The Future.”
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