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Our New Church Home

From Pastor Paul

July 21, 2010

Dear Family,

By the time you receive this letter we will have signed a lease for our new church home at 2091 Faulkner Rd. I want you to know that we, Pastors Randy, Johnny and I looked at or considered close to 50 different locations. Our goals were to:

1. Provide room for church growth (sanctuary seating for 350+)

2. Provide additional classroom & office space for our expanding ministries.

3. Provide additional restroom facilities.

4. Create a useable kitchen.

5. Provide easy access for our long distance commuters.

6. Keep the rent affordable.

7. Stay close to the GLBT community, that The Father has called us to reach with the good news of the gospel.

Our new home meets these goals far better than anything else we’ve considered.

Our new church home, when ready, will have a sanctuary seating capacity of 300+ with the potential of high 300’s. We will have six private half baths, a modest but functional kitchen with stove, a large classroom separate from the sanctuary, another 6-8 office/classrooms and much better storage. The new sanctuary will be approximately 4700 sq. ft. (we have about 2200 now) with dim-able lighting (no more wire hangers and no more fluorescents!). The platform will be larger, more flexible and with better lighting. I hope to give the entire space a warm but clean, contemporary feel. Here are a few other benefits to our new home: because we’re at the corner of Cheshire Bridge and Faulkner roads the sign over our front door will be visible from Cheshire Bridge RD, we now have a large grassy front yard for picnics, outreach, etc, and we are very close to many gay friendly restaurants for fellowship.

To those who gave so generously to the building fund I and the leadership send you a heartfelt, “Thank you!” In a very short time we’ve received close to $40,000 of the $50,000 that I estimate we will need to prepare the space. This is excellent for a church of our size. Keep up the giving! I assure you that we are very careful with all the church funds because we are accountable to God as stewards. We never want to be a church that begs for money because we’ve been poor stewards.

That being said we will need help with the preparations. Our lease begins August 1^st. I hope to complete all the work in six weeks. There is a lot of work to do but my dad has a saying, “Many hands make light work.” Not everyone has the ability to help with the hands on construction; that’s okay. Some have the time and ability to do more than others; that’s great. But if everyone does what they can, whether a lot or a little, the work will get done. Prayerfully consider how you can help. Beginning August 3^rd the work schedule will be Tuesdays through Saturdays so that folks that work through the week can help on sat. To make best use of your time Deacons Leah and Amy are setting up a system for you to sign up to volunteer. Here’s some of the work that needs to be done;

1)trash out, 2) demolition, 3) light framing, 4) sheetrock, 5) hang doors and interior trim, 6) paint, 7) remove and re-install the drop ceiling, 8) build new sound booth, 9) build new platform, 10) install carpet, 11) stain the concrete floors where there’s no carpet, 12) install hardware, 13) install new signage and 14) install new kitchen cabinets.

I intend to recycle as much of the existing doors, framing, lighting, ceiling and misc. as possible. Anyone that has specific experience and can help with: 1) installing drop ceilings. 2) Stage lighting, 3) staining concrete floors and 4) laying carpet and 5) light electrical please e-mail me at paulwalker@mindspring.com. Please do not donate any furniture, pictures, electronics, building materials, equipment, etc until contacting me first. Here are a few things we’ll need; 1) a second refrigerator for the kitchen, 2) office furniture, 3) conference room table and chairs, 4) a large dry erase board for the classroom,5) a large bulletin board for the fellowship hallway. 6) Large free standing brochure stand. If you have something to donate, an idea or a helpful suggestion please e-mail me first so I can keep everything organized. Please understand that not all potential donations or suggestions can be used. If you do volunteer, please bring your own tools. Where ever you are able to help, please help; and Thank You!

The Father reminds me that all of this effort and work is not about NCCA, it’s about reaching out to a lost nation. The main stream churches don’t have the heart for the GLBT nation. Many of the ‘affirming’ churches don’t have a heart for The Father. I believe that we, as a church family, have a heart for both and are called to ‘stand in the gap’. Our move, this expansion and all of our hard work is about being faithful to this call.

Blessings,

Pastor Paul

Immersed 2010 Update

Immersed 2010 was overwhelming as we celebrated New Covenant’s 10 Years of ministry in Atlanta, GA. God moved so powerfully, and His Presence was so irresistible; He was glorified. There were over 250 attendees and 227 of that number were in service on Sunday morning. Pastor Pam from God’s Remnant, Pastor Brian from Lighthouse, and Apostle Dale from Apostolic Rainbow Connections all brought powerful words from God; Prophet Zoila made a few wonderful prophetic declarations also, Sister Janice Lacount and Pastor Randy Duncan blessed us with singing. Friday and Saturday literally hundreds of Prophetic words were given as teams of our prophetic presbytery ministered until the late hours of the night. Pastor Tammy Riley, Pastor Jason Brooks, and Pastor Tonna Keith-Jones were all ordained Sunday morning, and what a powerful time. Thank you so much Deacon Eddie, Reva, and Jacob for the planning and the implementation of Immersed 2010. Thank you Deacon Leah and Deacon Amy for the meals, and thank you Devon Saucier, Freddie White, Lynne McCorkle and everyone else who helped with hospitality and the list goes on.

Levites – oh how you glorified God!!! Thank you for pouring out your worship to the King.

Immersed 2011’s planning team will begin planning soon; next year’s conference will be in OUR NEW LOCATION with more seating, stronger AC units, and more bathrooms. We want to see 400+ GLBT and our straight allies from all over the world converge for Immersed 2011, with more nations, churches, networks, etc to all come together and cry out for more revival and outpouring of the Holy Spirit in all of our cities and countries (and especially on our LGBT nation, OUR sons, and daughters throughout the world).

Thank God for all the NCCA leadership as well – the pastoral staff, the deacons, and the head’s of ministries did a remarkable job encouraging and ministering to people throughout the weekend. Y’all are awesome.

For Restoration, Revival, and God’s Glory,

Pastor Johnny Layton-Morgan (and AR)

Lead pastors – New Covenant Church of Atlanta

Apostolic and Prophetic Overseers of the Covenant Network