Campus Plan Vision

March 2024 Project Aspire Update: A note to the FBCA congregation

We all know that dozens of our good folk have been “neck deep” in our planning activities for our campus facilities over the last several years. The vision that has become known as Project Aspire has hundreds of fingerprints all over it. It includes many of our members, members of the YMCA leadership and governing bodies, ordinary citizens across our town and even farther and among our surrounding neighbors as well.

Two years ago, when we brought this vision to you for your consideration, we mentioned several hard stops, most of which revolved around approvals and funding. While we have achieved many necessary approvals and had good community conversations, attempts at solidifying key agreements essential to making the project work have proven elusive.

As a result, it appears Project Aspire would take a long time to mature into something financially plausible and acceptable to all parties. Our Church’s needs are more immediate and waiting to make decisions is no longer possible. The YMCA leadership and our own FBCA leadership have both concluded that we need to begin to address some pressing needs of our own organizations and facilities and therefore we are choosing to suspend our current approach to Project Aspire. Change is hard, courage requires faith and financial environments change. We have been asked often, “Why take a chance on something this big, this complex, this expensive?” And all the while we have lived the life of an Easter people, believing in a Savior that so many people outside of our dome just can’t see, can’t believe in and won’t discuss…unless we reach out to them and show them Christ’s love. Project Aspire has been our attempt to live by example and reach out to our community, its residents and our very world in a new, different and relevant way of meeting the least of these “where they are”…bold, audacious and with that love. No strings attached.

The FBCA and YMCArelationship is strong. We will continue our respective missions and ministries as we always have, but we are shifting our focus. The Y needs a new facility. We need to address our own aging facilities, including One Oak. Those solutions must still be found, and the friendships found through Aspire lay a strong foundation in our respective searches for those answers. I choose to look at this not as starting over, but rather turning the page.

More to come.

Scott Hughes