– God took us from New York and brought us here, and the National Office was moved here. What a partnership and what collaboration in the ministry of God! It was no accident. For us, that was a great miracle.

– Are you intrigued? Today, I’m eager for you to hear the story that God is writing through Project ReImagine.

I do believe that a God story is being written among us. I haven’t focused on Project ReImagine on this video blog for two years now, but today is my opportunity to update us, to reveal the new plans, and to invite our participation.

I’m often asked, “How is the relocation of the National Office going?” And my answer is, “It’s been great!” All of our goals are being met, at least on a preliminary basis. We are engaging with more Alliance people, spending fewer dollars, operating out of a better airport, with a greater diversity of staff who’s more engaged in ministry to the community around us. So we’re not even into our new building yet, but we’re experiencing the benefits of this relocation.

Many of you remember at Council 2023 that we introduced One Alliance Place, a 130,000 square foot building that was going to be the anchor for this property. Well, we’ve made some changes since then that we get to tell you about today. And to aid me in the storytelling, I’ve invited three of your Board of Directors members and Tim Meier, the vice president for Development, who together have been walking with other C&MA leadership through this journey.

– I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of this journey from the start, and I can just tell you, this has been a Spirit-led journey for the Board, for the administration of the C&MA. The last year as we began to see fundraising slow, you might wonder, what happened with Board discussions? How did that go? What was an inside view? We began to ask questions. We had some hard conversations. We explored options and we prayed. Every Friday, we’d have prayer Zoom calls and we would just look to Jesus and say, “Lord, how are You using these circumstances to redirect us?” And it was good.

As you know, the leading of the Spirit is often not a straight line, it’s a zigzag. And we saw that happen here, and I can tell you, God answered. He heard and He began to lead, and we began to see this vision take on a new shape. I’m excited to see how this unfolds and how God works and provides, and I think you’re going to be encouraged, as you see some of the plans in the rest of this video, to say, “Wow, it might look a little bit different, but the purpose is the same and God is at work.”

– I remember the first time we stood on the property in Columbus, and we looked at that old Kmart and I thought, “How could this be the place God is calling us to?” And we were in the middle of this historic pandemic; who will give to a project of this magnitude when people are thinking about, “How do I survive?” As a Board member and local Alliance pastor, I felt like I needed to hear from God so clearly on this. And time and time again I heard God say, “Yes, this is it.”

For the past four plus years, God has clearly led us. Yes, we have made some adjustments that you’ll hear about, but the future of what this campus will become will shape The Alliance for the next decades. We’ll see more dollars raised for the Great Commission Fund. We will see ministry happen in ways we did not expect, like is already happening, and we will continue to be stretched in our missionary posture here in this country. As a pastor and leader, I am so excited about the story that God is writing, but we have arrived in this moment with a plan that looks slightly different from what was communicated at Council. Let’s hear more about the hurdles we’ve had to overcome and some of the challenges that God has led us through.

– Have you ever started a project, and it went exactly how you wanted it to go? Well, we’re experiencing one of those that hasn’t gone exactly how we planned, and yet we’re grateful for the story that God is writing.

As John already said, at Council 2023 we showed images of what One Alliance Place on this campus would look like. At that point, we had purchased 14 acres in cash outside the Great Commission Fund. We had torn down an old Kmart that came with that McDonald’s and we were moving forward with excitement and good energy. A few months later, the fundraising pace slowed down, so we started asking questions like you’ve already heard from Ted and Jonathan, and we entered this prayerful moment, and that resulted in a change of what the building will look like. The big shift was that we thought initially we could accomplish all of this under one roof, and we realized it may be better, and certainly save a lot of fundraising energy and money, to see this more of a campus view.

I want to make a couple of things clear. Throughout this process, some have wondered, how is The Alliance really doing? The Alliance hasn’t slowed down our mission at all. In fact, we’ve increased the number of international workers we’re sending, we’re planting more churches, and the Great Commission Fund has grown since we launched Project ReImagine. This dream, while it’s taking a different iteration and while the square footage has been reduced of the building, is not changing in its essence. As a Board, we were wrestling through things like, we need to really marry the vision but just take the plan on a date, because the plans may change but that vision is what God gave our Board and John and our leadership team, and that vision is still going forward full speed ahead.

I’m excited for you to hear from another Board member who also serves as an international worker.

– In all honesty, I was not a fan of relocating the National Office. A move like this comes with inherent costs of time, money, and energy. It all seemed like a distraction from our mission when we already owned a perfectly good building in Colorado.

At Council 2021, I heard Ted Kang share about visiting potential sites for our new National Office. Ted didn’t really sense much until they toured the Kmart property in Reynoldsburg. There, he sensed the Spirit stir in him. There was something different about that place. And as Ted related this experience, the Spirit stirred in my heart as well. And God gently said, “You never asked Me what I thought.” From that moment, I chose to open my heart to what God was inviting us into in Reynoldsburg.

Project ReImagine became one of the things I was most excited to be a part of as I joined the Board of Directors in 2023. And as a Board, we have prayed together and sought the Lord together throughout the rescaling of the project. The building is scaled back, but the vision is in no way scaled back. I’ve asked National Office workers to share their stories of community engagement, and I’ve been amazed at the doors God has opened as our people have obediently said yes to Him. Who could have imagined a Francophone/Fulani ministry center, partnerships with local nonprofits, or recognition by the Chamber of Commerce for our community impact? Every story I hear reminds me of the relational and incarnational work that I engage in as an international worker. The Alliance family is answering God’s call to missional engagement in Reynoldsburg.

– So let me tell you about some of that ministry that’s happening here in Reynoldsburg. When we were praying about this project, we dreamed that maybe we could partner with people that we didn’t even conceive of, hadn’t yet met, and God is writing some of those stories. As we were repositioning ourselves to office differently and live differently here, God was also repositioning people like a Congolese pastor in New York City named Roger who came, planted a church, it grew rapidly, and now they’ll use the new ministry center that was formerly the strip mall we purchased—that was renovated, by the way, from lease income already generated on the campus, not from the GCF-—and they’ll start using that in just a few weeks to hold weekly services.

God was also repositioning one of the least-reached people groups in the world, the Fulani, to move to, of all places, Columbus, Ohio. And they’ll be using that ministry center as well for conversations about their lives and ultimately about God. This is why we reposition ourselves, so that stories like this can be born and can grow, and now we get to watch what God is doing.

So I’m excited for you to hear from Roger, that Congolese pastor, and what God is doing in their midst.

– We believe what God is doing is to reach the French-speaking community that is in this city. And in this context in Reynoldsburg, we’ve found that there are a lot of French-speaking communities all around this spot. We see that there is a huge opening to reach out to the immigrant communities who have come to Columbus.

Last week, we were able to baptize three people who accepted Jesus Christ for the first time. It’s an extraordinary joy! The people are happy to hear that there’s a French-speaking church here. They want to hear the Word of God in their heart language. And to know the Word of God in your language, that does something because it speaks to your heart, and that’s what brings the transformation.

We have joy knowing that these aren’t our plans but these are God’s plans. We join and work with Him and that gives us joy in our hearts.

– A joyful story is being written even though it’s not the story I expected. I wanted to tear that strip mall down, but now it’s going to be utilized for significant Kingdom purposes.

As you’ve heard, we’re taking a campus model approach to the 14 acres. Rather than putting all of our emphasis on one very large building, we have scaled that primary building back dramatically and repositioned it on the campus so that it leaves room for some future developer to put the retail buildings on the property in a manner that they own the buildings, we own the land, we receive the lease income from the land that’ll benefit the Great Commission Fund for decades to come, but we don’t need to be the building owners and raise that money. So the redesigned One Alliance Place will still be our National Office where our staff comes to work, but it will also contain meeting rooms, of a size that are not currently available in the city of Reynoldsburg, that will be accessible to our staff and the public, and this coffee-plus-tea house. We look forward to this design where we get to engage a community, as those of us who oversee the mission get to be on mission as we come to the office.

Numerous churches have already talked to us about, “Do we need to reposition ourselves for ministry in our communities?” And my answer has been, “Don’t try to replicate what we’re doing, but do ask the questions we’re asking. How do we at this moment in history engage the community as the church of Christ?” And I need to let you know that there are other organizations, whose names you would recognize, I guarantee you, that have called us and asked about this project because as they consider a relocation for the first time, it is occurring to them that maybe they could engage with the community as well. So friends, this is the tip of a spear of what God is doing at this moment in American Christianity and perhaps beyond. We’re part of a significant storyline.

Thank you for helping us get this far. We are 81 percent funded for the whole Project ReImagine dream. Thank you for those who made that happen, we’re grateful to you. And this is the invitation for all of us, please, all of us in the Alliance family, to own this vision for yourself. So would you use this as an opportunity to make your financial gift to help us finish the project? This is a story that you’ll want to participate in. Now is the time.