Calvary Church Annual Report CalvaryChurchAnnualReport20152016-REV | Page 5
grace beyond
Grace Beyond has made an obvi-
ous impact on Calvary Church this
year. Early in the fiscal year we had
to shift our thinking from a sched-
ule that had us out of the Sanctu-
ary for a six-month period in 2015-
2016 to the current plan of being
out of it for eight months, ending
at Christmas-time 2016. The end
date for the whole project moved
out as well. This impacted all of
the Grace Beyond Committees, the
staff, and the congregation greatly.
But we have been able to see that
the change in plans was definitely
useful in the hands of God in allow-
ing us time to prepare for things we
had not considered under the earli-
er schedule.
As the Logistics Committee began
to put plans into place for our Calva-
ry@Calvin activities, it became ob-
vious that we needed hundreds of
volunteers to serve in various ways
that had been unknown to Calvary
Church previously. God moved in
the hearts of many in our congre-
gation to fill all of the needs, which
has resulted in a relatively smooth
experience at Calvin College. We
added greeters to make people feel
welcome in a different place. Then
we added guides to help them find
their way to their destination. For
those who have mobility concerns,
we added golf carts and drivers to
pick them up and deliver them to
a door near their preferred seating
area. To increase safety for all of
us, we added hall monitors, and the
Deacons authorized supplement-
ing our internal security team with
a commercial security firm. Since
the arena we meet in has sporting
events as its primary purpose, we
added setup and tear-down crews
to transform it each week from
sports to worship and back again.
Then, because we were caring for
our children differently than before,
we added many volunteers for that
as well.
Meanwhile, our relationship with
people outside the church has
been changing. Our facility chal-
lenges have caused us to work
with Calvin College in ways we nev-
er did before. Working with them
forced us also to work with Wood-
lawn Christian Reformed Church to
coordinate parking on the campus.
But that has not been sufficient for
all needs, so we have also worked
with Cornerstone University and
Grand Rapids Theological Semi-
nary, where a number of smaller
events have occurred. All of these
organizations and other smaller
ones have assisted us and worked
with us to make our Calvary@Cal-
vin experience a good one for all
concerned.
As we now begin to set plans in
place for our return to our own facil-
ity, we anticipate that God will once
again use that transition to change
us. Our initial months back in our
facility will be a little like living in a
house that’s under construction.
There will be portions of the build-
ing we will not be able to enter or
use at all, and others that will have
to be used for purposes that are
temporary. Getting from one end
of the building to the other may be
a little challenging. All of that will
force us to trust God more than
ever, and to develop patient endur-
ance with one another. Many of the
volunteer positions we created for
Calvary@Calvin will be retained
when we return to our campus.
And, we may find some new ones
that do not currently exist. But in all
cases, we expect that God will con-
tinue to change us into the church
He wants us to be.
John Zimmerman
Grace Beyond Steering Committee
As Pastor Jim indicated early on,
Grace Beyond has and is chang-
ing us into a congregation made
up of people who are serving one
another in various ways that were
previously unknown to us. And, it is
changing us into a people who are
more inviting to those who are vis-
iting us for the first time.
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