The Lamplighter
Our New Church Home?
This Church and rental home connected with it is located at 300 S. Artizan Street in Williamsport, MD.
The TUR Team has searched long and hard for another property for our congregation. Through Josh Wilson we became aware that this church was going to be sold. We contacted the owners and through negotiations, we have signed a contract to purchase this property.
What will this commit us to financially? We don't have the final numbers but the rent from the home on this property is $1,150/month. Our mortgage payment would be a little more than $1,150/month!
In 2021 our rent for using Willow Brook's church is $1,300/month. Again, even without considering income from the rental property, the mortgage payment would be in this area.
We don't know what closing costs will be, but here is an idea of what the mortgage payment will be. We have $153,000 in our Building Fund. We also have a grant of $100,000 from AFLC Home Missions. We are putting $150,000 as a down payment and will have to borrow $185,000. A twenty year loan on this amount at 5% would result in a mortgage payment of $1,220.92. We may be able to get a better interest rate, but this gives you an idea of what it might be. Again this is about $80 less than our monthly rent at Willow Brook.
We have identified things in the electrical system which need to be brought up to code as well as making the basement handicap accessible and other improvements with an estimated cost of $60,000. This would leave us with about $40,000 for unforeseen expenses and future improvements.
Financially this looks like a very good oportunity.
However, we this will be contingent your approval at a congregational meeting; upon getting an inspection on an in-ground oil tank; and upon our getting a loan for the remainder of the purchase.
This church may be familiar to some of us. We used this church for our Lenten services several years ago, including our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services.
Even if you participated in those Lenten services, you will want to see this church in person. There will be an open house on Sunday, January 24th from 2-4 pm. The address is: 300 S. Artizan St. Williamsport, MD 21795.
The congregational meeting will take place on Sunday, January 31, 2021 after the worship service. For those. who are not comfortable coming into Willow Brook for the meeting, we will set up the FM transmitter which we used during worship at Family Recreation this summer. You can stay in your car and listen to the meeting on your car radio. When it comes time to vote, ballots can be distributed to everyone in their vehicles, as well as in the building, then collected and tabulated. We found out that we cannot have voting electronically through a Zoom meeting or any other electronic platform.
This is an exciting opportunity in the life of our congregation. Please be in prayer about this.
Strengthen Our Building Fund!
This would be a great time to help increase what we have in our building fund, which could be used to increase our down payment on the loan, which would lower our monthly mortgage payment.
You can designate your gift by marking the memo on a check with "Building Fund." There are options for how you can give.
- You can mail your check to the church office: 1016 Spruce St, Hagerstown, MD 21740
- You can place your offering in a basket at the entrance to the Sanctuary in an envelope marking it with "Building Fund."
- You can give online by going to our website: CCCAFLC.ORG and clicking on the word "Giving," You will see the image above. Now click on "Add or change funds." Choose "Building Fund" and enter the amount. You can do the same thing through the Faithlife App for our Congregation.
Online Worship Options
We have recently added another option for online viewing. Our worship service is streamed live to our Website: CCCAFLC.ORG.
Go to that web address and scroll down until you see our live streaming window, shown above. It may have a triangle to click on to start the live stream.
Another option we have used. Ever since March 2020 when Covid-19 restrictions prevented us from worshipping together in person, we started worshipping online using Facebook Live. We continue to use this option. When on FaceBook, go to ChristCommunityAFLC at 9:30 am on Sundays.
