Announcing our Future Home!
On Sunday, July 9th, we shared with our congregation the exciting news that we have signed a lease on a future home for The Mission Cincinnati. The congregation at Grace United Methodist Church, located at 2221 Slane Avenue in Norwood, has graciously invited us into a shared space usage arrangement where we will have permanent office and group meeting spaces, as well as designated use of the sanctuary, main floor common areas, and children’s classrooms on Sundays and Holy Days.
We are THRILLED at God’s provision for us in this regard! This announcement is the fruit of an almost 18-month process that began with discussions between our Rector & Vestry, involved 45 adult attendees participating in a congregational survey, commissioning a task force of volunteers based on those survey responses to formally search for a space, evaluating almost a dozen possible spaces—some submitted by the congregation, some shared with us by others in the city—and finally executing negotiations between our Vestry and Grace UMC’s core team. This arrangement will solve every ministry constraint we currently experience in our present context: we will no longer have a time limit on Sunday worship, we will have multiple large kids classrooms we can utilize, we will be able to linger in the sanctuary and immediately adjacent common spaces after worship, and we have ready-made community engagement opportunities we can join with without needing to reinvent the wheel. Among these, Grace UMC hosts a Wednesday evening community dinner they would be thrilled for us to partner with!
Though we do not have a set move-in date, our hope is to transition from House of Joy to the new space sometime this Fall. We are planning to make a number of cosmetic and structural updates and repairs to the space before moving in. There will be plenty of opportunities to join hands in this transition through 1) participating in congregational work days, 2) contributing financially to cover the cost of needed updates, 3) beginning to participate in Wednesday evening community meals and other acts of community engagement, 4) joining in one of 2 of the pilgrimages from the Rec Center to Grace UMC that will be hosted by Jamie Noyd in August and September. We look forward to sharing the specifics of these opportunities for participation in the weeks to come in our Mission Minute newsletter and social media. Please stay tuned!
For now, we are thrilled to share and celebrate this wonderful news and significant milestone in the life of our maturing church plant! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Questions or want more info? Contact admin@missioncincinnati.org.