A Call to Rise
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. We believe that in this season of ministry God is calling us to rise. To rise to new heights of ministry, to rise to the challenge set before us, to rise to who we are called to be.
Over the past year and a half, our staff, One Church One Body council, and many lay leaders have diligently worked on a proposed building expansion to address our ministry needs. This new imprint will include additional classrooms and spaces for preschool, kids and adult ministries and GroupLife, a new dedicated 350-seat college gathering space and coffee shop, and needed renovations to our Worship Center and Fellowship Hall.
This additional space will increase our college & adult maximum capacity for Sunday morning GroupLife from 1,100 to 2,200 across 11 new meeting spaces, along with 9 new preschool and kids classrooms for over 200 more children.
Additionally, renovating our current worship & fellowship hall space will provide a much-needed facelift and allow us to maximize the efficiency of their ministry use for everyone who attends our Traditional, Contemporary, and Spanish Speaking services.
We remain excited about what is happening at First Baptist Bryan and your partnership with us. Together, we can rise to the new heights to which God is calling us.
Some Why’s
Our staff and strategic planning committees have considered a variety of approaches to address our current and projected ministry needs.
One of those considerations was whether or not going to two GroupLife hours would address our current and anticipated needs for the next five years. Some of us have come from church backgrounds where going to multiple GroupLife hours solved their space issues. However, when we considered this in our church context, we realized going to two GroupLife hours would only solve the need for more space in our adult department, but would not, or make worse, the growth issues in other departments. Here are the issues going to two GroupLife hours could not address:
- It could not help our Preschool department because preschoolers fill their classrooms during both the Worship & GroupLife hours. We are already approaching capacity space in our Preschool hallways.
- It could only give limited space relief to our Children’s area because our kids space is not distributed evenly for both worship hours. We would be unable to provide space for elementary age kids during the GroupLife hour that would feed the Contemporary Service. Since 2017, our kids space has already bled over into two rooms that were formerly used for adult classes, and have closed off an unused area to form another classroom–they are out of space.
- Likewise, our College and Spanish speaking ministries are both sharing our fellowship hall as GroupLife space. Both of these ministries feed the late worship hour in which our Contemporary & Spanish Speaking services both meet. Both ministries are rapidly growing and can not share space for much longer.
- The college department will be outgrowing the maximum capacity of the fellowship hall, even if it were not shared with our Spanish speaking ministry. The College department needs a high-capacity, dedicated space out of which to conduct their various growing ministries and outreach.
- The Spanish speaking ministry needs suitable Worship & GroupLife space in which their various ministries can grow and thrive beyond what our fellowship hall in its current state and usage can provide.
- Even if going to two GroupLife hours solved our Sunday morning issues (which it cannot), our current educational space cannot address any ministry expansion in our MidWeek ministries for kids, youth, and adults. A prime example is our youth ministry has already well-outgrown the ability for our Jr. and Sr. High students to meet all together in Matt’s House on Wednesday nights at the same time. The new building will allow our High Schoolers to meet in the college space (college doesn’t meet on Wednesdays) and our Middle Schoolers to use Matt’s House during Wednesday night gatherings. The new building will address the growth needs each of these ministries have during the week, as well as on Sunday mornings.
All of this GroupLife and ministry growth is possible as our services continue to grow toward maximum capacity.
Rise at a Glance
Total Project Cost of $16.5 Million
Groundbreaking: June 2022
1.5 year build time
35,000 Additional Sq. Feet
Permanent ministry spaces for Preschool, Children, Youth, College and Adults.
Total of 22 new rooms of various sizes
- 4 New Preschool Rooms
- 1 Preschool Storage Room
- Indoor Playground Space
- 5 New Children’s Rooms
- Children’s Worship Room
- 1 College Gathering Room (350 Person Capacity)
- 1 Coffee House
- 9 New GroupLife Classrooms
(New building space will free up current building rooms for 1 more PS class, 4 more Spanish speaking classes, and 4 adult classes. The plan is to continue using the 3 purchased, semi-permanent modular buildings, which provides space for 5 adult classrooms and to remove any rented modular buildings in use prior to opening the new building.)
Important Dates
Prayerful Giving – “Not equal gifts but equal sacrifice”
In this exciting time, we look forward to the next steps of growth here at First Baptist Bryan. We ask you to prayerfully consider how you will partner with us. Partnership is multifaceted and can look many different ways, whether it be through time, engagement, prayer or giving.
Below you will find a link for online pledge registration as well as online giving.