College Baptist Church is on its way to adding a new section to its building for the first time in more than 150 years by kick-starting a fundraising campaign to raise $700,000 last Sunday.
Church leaders said they hope to use the new space to accommodate the needs of the congregation and community for handicapped-accessible facilities, and to increase the opportunities for training and fellowship.
College Baptist will name the new addition the 4:12 Center, a reference to Ephesians 4:12: “To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” according to church leaders.
The center will include a new fellowship hall, a kitchen, two classrooms, a conference room, a nursery, bathrooms, and office spaces for church staff, according to plans on the Church website.
According to College Baptist Pastor Ben Cuthbert, the idea of an addition to the church dates back nearly a century.
“There are architectural drawings for an addition to College Baptist that date back to around the 1930s that hang on the wall; there’s always been a vision for the building itself to be larger than it is,” Cuthbert said.
Rod Stewart, a member of the College Baptist building committee and a regular attendee of the church since 1973, said the church has long needed the addition.
“Even as a student I picked up at the time that people had recognized this was a lecture hall– a preaching church, not a congregation church,” Stewart said.
College Baptist began to seriously consider an addition in 2005, according to Cuthbert. Under former pastor Jason Mekelburg, who joined College Baptist in 2006, Cuthbert said that idea only grew.
“The church was in a place where they recognized some of those inadequacies in a significant sort of way, so my predecessor, under his leadership, there was birthed this idea for an addition that they dubbed the 4:12 Center,” Cuthbert said.
After another decade of drafting plans and attempting to kickstart the project, Pastor Mekelburg died in 2016, so the project stalled while the church searched for a new pastor. The church eventually hired Cuthbert in the summer of 2017. Following Mekelburg’s vision, the project moved forward as the church approved a contract with Storey Brook Development to help create the plans currently in use for the center, Cuthbert said.
Cuthbert also said the current plans for the 4:12 Center include new handicapped-accessible bathrooms.
“Our building only has one main floor restroom; it’s inadequate to do the ministry that God’s called us to do,” Cuthbert said. “We can’t welcome new people if we aren’t handicapped-accessible.”
Stewart said the new center will provide more educational opportunities at the church.
“It’s providing an overall facility that helps us support and do potentially more classroom training and seminars,” Stewart said.
Stewart said he hopes to see missions training, especially after returning from a medical mission trip in Peru.
“I would like to see preparation for the mission field. I think we could be particularly positioned in the missions angle to train for going to another culture, a different people, a different approach to life,” Stewart said.
Both Cuthbert and Stewart highlighted the focus on college students with the center as well, mentioning in particular the possibility for speaking events.
“We can’t always open our facility as often as we would like to for students, we haven’t been able to take advantage of opportunities to raise up the next generation of pastors and missionaries and we would love to have a facility that might allow us to host conferences or special speakers or lectures from time to time,” Cuthbert said.
College Baptist Church approved the launch of a Capital Campaign to raise $700,000 under the leadership of Bill Gray, a member of the Mission Board at College Baptist and the President of Marketing at Hillsdale College.
“There’s a big number to hit, $700,000, and so it’s going to take a lot of prayer from lots of different people,” Gray said. “The campaign will run from probably mid-to-late March through May, and the goal at the end of that campaign will be to have commitments from folks to support the project over the course of three years.”
According to Gray, one of the biggest needs for the project in the next year is generosity from the church.
“The challenge is going to be encouraging the congregation to be generous and to trust as a congregation that the funds will arrive that we need,” Gray said. “My hope and prayer is that all of this comes together to where we can move forward and break ground. Hopefully, you know, in the next year or so.”
Students interested in donating money to the 4:12 Center can either designate their offering at College Baptist as for the building addition, or can give through the College Baptist website, designating building addition. Additionally, students can participate in the upcoming capital campaign by completing pledge cards before leaving for the summer, Gray said.
According to Stewart, this is an opportunity for students as well, even if they only give smaller amounts.
Since its inception, College Baptist Church has been an integral part of Hillsdale College, spending its first 10 years in the college chapel before moving to its current location. Ronald Reagan spoke at College Baptist when he first visited Hillsdale in 1977, and the sanctuary has hosted many convocations over the years. Stewart, Cuthbert and Gray hope to continue the church’s integral role in the community through the 4:12 Center and the new opportunities it provides.
