The executive board of Etowah Baptist Association (EBA) voted Sept. 22 to expand the association’s office space.
“We’re staying on the same location but adding additional office space,” Director of Missions Bob Thornton said, adding that the office size will increase from 3,000 square feet to about 10,000 square feet.
He said the extra space will house an expanded conference room for EBA executive board meetings, as well as additional conference rooms if churches want to hold meetings there.
The association’s campus minister and hispanic missionary will also have offices at the building, as will the counselor from the Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes and Family Ministries.
Thornton said the move comes after three years of strategy planning to discern the association’s needs.
“We evaluated our health as an association, the health of our churches and community and the kind of impact we’re making on the community,” he said.
“We’ve been crowded for eight years,” he noted.
Increased technology
Thornton said plans also include an expansion of the EBA’s media center to house archives and provide space for increased technology.
“We’re trying to move into the high-tech world in which we live,” Thornton said. “We hope to be able to do satellite teleconferencing to provide good leadership conferences for our leaders.”
Thornton said the venture has a projected cost of $750,000, which the EBA hopes to reduce by using volunteer labor for much of the work.
In order to fund the project, the EBA executive board has asked member churches for monetary commitments, which the board will review Nov. 24. Thornton said these commitments can be in the form of a lump sum, pledges or sums given throughout the building process.
“We are asking that each church commit the amount of $8 per resident member per year for four years,” he said.
Totaling up to $32 per the association’s 26,000 resident members, Thornton said that amount would more than pay for the building.
“We would love to have as much money as possible up front to avoid debt and interest,” Thornton said.
He added that if not all of the money given is used, then the association plans to pay it back to the churches on a prorated basis.
And although the adjacent property has already been purchased, Thornton said final construction plans have been put on hold until the executive board knows how much money is available for the project.
But as EBA waits for the final plans, Thornton said demolition work on the purchased property will begin in December.
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