Why our own building?
In the 25 years since 1995, God has grown OEC to over 750 people who call OEC their church. Before Covid, we gathered together at four separate Sunday services along with various meetings regularly taking place during the week at six different locations across Orange.
Our own Ministry Centre will secure our ability to preach the gospel in our changing culture for decades to come. We will have the opportunity to think of new and different ways to gather people and reach out to our community with the good news of the gospel.
Our youth will have a place to call their own, with a confidence of being able to gather and grow together in the knowledge and love of God.
Our seniors will be able to gather together in warmth, comfort and ever increasing numbers.
Toddlers and babies will enjoy playgroups while parents share time together and invite friends, workmates and neighbours to gather at this site.
We expect this new building will enable us to minister the gospel in ways that we can’t even imagine until we move in and get started. Here are some videos about how some of our current ministries would hugely benefit from having our own building and our latest update.
Youth Group
Adrenalites
Setting up for a combined service
The journey so far
In 2007, the partners of OEC decided to develop our own Ministry Centre. They saw clear advantages in having one location to centralize all that we do together. Since then we have bought two properties and sold one. In late 2018 we finally received council approval to build our Ministry Centre on the Ploughman’s Lane property. The sale of the Lords Place Cinema building was completed in September, 2019. In July, 2020 we raised our $900,000 start up fund! Praise God! October 2020 saw the earthworks for the carparks and building site commenced. And we expect to start work on the actual building in March this year.
What is our next step?
We’ve signed the early earthworks contract with our builder, BLD. And these earthworks commenced in October, 2020 and are nearly concluded. We expect to see the building itself started in March. And we have started using the existing house at Ploughmans lane as our office and small meeting space.
And in 2021, God willing, we expect to complete the project. OEC partners have authorised a loan of up to $2.4M so we have a significant financial commitment to repay.
What’s in the building?
A 347 seat auditorium, a breakout space that connects to the auditorium around the same size as the school halls we currently meet in, a kitchen with servery to indoors and outdoors, a creche, 3 kids classrooms with retractable walls that would make a mini hall, toilets and store room.
The building is air conditioned which will enable us to meet in comfort in winter and summer. An east facing foyer should protect from the elements as people enter. And the multi-function design of the building will enable us to have our Senior and Junior Youth groups, Adrenalites, Seniors, Kids church and special events use separate spaces that suit their needs at different times of the week. We’re hopeful that we’ll think of new ways to gather people together to hear the gospel of God’s grace in this space in the years ahead.
What about paying off the loan?
We will need to pay off a loan of up to $2.4million over the next 10-15 years. The current repayments on a loan of this size for 15 years are $225,000 per annum. Our loan term is 20 years.
Currently, our building giving has been more than $200,000 per annum and, in the recent past, has actually exceeded $300,000 per annum. At the end of this task we will hand over a building to the next generation to preach the gospel of God’s grace in Orange for many decades to come.
How could you give to this?
Some people have suggested different ways we could contribute to paying for the building, such as:
Giving a lump sum from your savings.
Drawing down a lump sum from their mortgage and committing to increased mortgage repayments over a number of years.
Reducing spending in one area of life and giving that amount each month, e.g. 2 coffees a week = approx. $35 per month saving.
Committing a regular amount per month to building giving.
Leaving a bequest in a will.
It may be that one of these suggestions works for you. Or perhaps none of these will fit your circumstances. But please pray and carefully consider how you can contribute to this task.
Ministry Centre Virtual Tour
What else can I do?
Please pray
We have had many ups and downs in this process. Now, God has cleared the way for us to complete the Ministry Centre. But we still need to raise a large amount of money over the long term in order to pay off the loan. Please pray that God will move us to be generous givers so that this project will be fully paid off and owned for the benefit of the gospel and future generations.
Most importantly, pray that we would continue to be focused on serving our great God, making Him known and using this building for His glory.
Please give
Please read through our Good Giving Guide to help inform your giving to OEC and to the gospel vision we share. As well as the option to use PayPal to make a tax-deductible donation, you can EFT funds to either of the following two accounts or you can schedule transfers from your bank account to OEC’s bank account. Alternatively you can authorise OEC to take regular amounts from either your credit card or bank account at no cost to you. Simply email finance@oechurch.org.au
Building Account (non tax-deductible):
Name: Orange Evangelical Church
BSB: 062-587
Account No: 1034 0454
SBF (tax-deductible) Account:
Name: Orange Evangelical Church SBF
BSB: 062-587
Account No: 1046 4211
Please note: If giving to the tax-deductible account please supply your name for a receipt to be issued. Only one-third of funds will be able to be raised through tax-deductible giving. Please consider prioritising giving to the non tax-deductible giving account.
Or you may choose to contribute at the giving box available every Sunday in an envelope marked ‘Building’. Please make cheques payable to Orange Evangelical Church.