Relocation

Peace Lutheran Church started as a seed of an idea about having a Lutheran presence in Pella. Over the years, our ministries and membership has grown in many amazing ways. Now, as we look to the future of growing in mission, ministry and our family of believers to God's glory, there is a need to "transplant" this congregation, that started as a seed, to a location where we can develop expand our roots and extend our branches of ministry.

At the Quarterly Meeting of our congregation on February 29, 2004, the following resolution was presented by the Peace Lutheran Church Council:

In order to support and expand our ministries, Peace Lutheran Church will initiate a building program and relocate

The resolution was approved by a vote of 55 to 10 with one abstention.

Relocation Process Update June 2008

CONGRATULATIONS to our members of Peace Lutheran Church! 93% of the voting members attending the May 18th quarterly meeting approved the motion to proceed with the sale of our current church property and begin construction of our new church! What a powerful affirmation of our congregation's strong faith and desire to expand our ministries and serve others!

During the meeting, our RST presented the final design plan details including interior materials and colors recommendations, updated financials, and addressed questions after the motion was made.

With the approval to continue moving forward, our team is aggressively working on the following items: securing financing, finalizing construction drawings and contractor bids, completing the sale to Central College, wrapping up second round faithraising activities, and coordinating groundbreaking services with the worship planning team (which hopefully will have taken place by the time you’re reading this!

I’d also like to congratulate and thank our relocation steering team members for their endless dedication and support, our church council for their guidance and assistance, and our congregation for your feedback and faith in our team. We’ve all certainly accomplished a major milestone in our relocation journey! Way to go J!

So, I’d encourage everyone to pause and celebrate this exciting time together and to also reflect on where we’ve been, where we’re at, and most importantly where we’re going as a family in Christ.

With additional efforts, continued support from our congregation, and many prayers we can look forward to our first service in our new church and our enhanced ability to love others and share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Please be sure to contact me, members of our team, or members of the church council with questions, comments, or suggestions you may have.

Together We Grow Peace,
Don Lanke
Relocation Steering Team Leader

Relocation Process Update May 2008

RST Building Sub-team Update

WOW! Have you been out to the building site?? We have stakes in the ground showing the outline of the building and markers for the lane and parking lot! For those who choose to walk out onto the site, each stake is labeled with a brief description of what it marks.

The Building Team and members of the RST met with BVH Architects and Breiholz Construction to review the preliminary bids and begin the process of “value engineering”. BVH continues to develop the drawings for the building based on all of our feedback. We have another bid review and “value engineering” meeting on 4/21 to continue to refine the building plans as well as the costs.

Breiholz continues to work to develop a timeline that will allow us to break ground and have the building enclosed by fall with a targeted completion date that would allow us to have Easter service 2009 in the new building.

Schematics are posted in the in the Narthex if you wish to see more details! Keep watching for updates! I will post them as we receive them from BVH. It is really starting to take shape

Relocation Process Update April 2008

RST Building Sub-team Update

The RST and Building Team continue to develop the plans for the new church!! BVH has completed much of the preliminary drawing work for the new building. They have sent all these drawings to Breiholz Construction and Breiholz should be getting bids back from Sub-contractors in the next two weeks.

Breiholz is working to develop a timeline that will allow us to break ground and have the building enclosed by fall with a targeted completion date that would allow us to have Easter service 2009 in the new building! Check out the new floor plan below. Schematics are posted in the in the Narthex if you wish to see more details!

Relocation Process Update March 2008

RST Building Sub-team Update

The RST and Building Team met with BVH Architects and Breiholz Construction on January 11th to review the new Peace Lutheran Church schematics. BVH architects presented the latest changes to the plan as well as talked about the exterior finishes of the building at a high level. Breiholz Construction updated us on the costing process by informing us that preliminary bids were out for concrete and earth work. They indicated that some of the detail drawings were still coming in from BVH and that the costing process was just getting underway and would likely be completed by the end of March.

Breiholz indicated that the cost to build the floor plan we have developed will likely exceed our current budget but also stated that the costing process will help us better understand that gap. The RST and building teams decided to continue with the costing process while further developing the loan amount and building sale. The RST and Building Team will also look at other options to bring to the church congregation.

The latest update to the schematics will be posted on the RST board in the Narthex.

Relocation Process Update February 2008

RST Building Sub-team Update

The building team remains very active with BVH Architects and Breiholz Construction. In the last month we have provided BVH with all of the information gathered from the Council Committee meetings, the quarterly meeting, and feedback from other groups and individuals. This feedback is being incorporated into our building schematics and updates will be provided to us.

If you would like to see some of these changes BVH has provided a preliminary update which has been posted on the RST board in the Narthex of the church. An overview of the major changes would include relaying out the sacristy area based on committee meeting feedback and increasing the size of the Narthex/ Fellowship area to nearly 2600 square feet.

Many other smaller changes have been made as well. BVH & Breiholz construction will be meeting to review the latest updates and will continue with the pricing portion of the building project. We should see a more finalized version by the end of January. Updates will be posted on the RST board in the Narthex. We are still targeting a spring ground breaking!

Relocation Process Update January 2008

Building Team UpdateThe building team has been working to summarize all the feedback from the Council Committee meetings as well as feedback received from other groups and individuals.  We have summarized this information and are in the process of relaying that back to BVH for further enhancement to our schematics further.  We are currently working with BVH and Breiholz to start to “value engineer” the building.  Value engineering will involve making changes that allow us to have a functional facility but also allow us to crate an affordable facility.  We expect this process to continue for some time to come.

We currently find our building square footage at 16,300.  Sanctuary seating is at approximately 240 people with a seating arrangement that is similar to our current building.  Educational areas include spaces for all grades and proposed areas for our youth groups.   Sanctuary, Narthex/ Fellowship, Food shelf, kitchen, and other spaces continue to be optimized for our uses.We are making progress!

Together We Grow Peace,
Don Lanke
Relocation Steering Team Leader