You may have been part of church campaigns in the past where you were asked to give a second gift “above and beyond” your usual gifts to complete special projects. At Home Church, these have been used to make new buildings and ministries possible. Normally, you gave that gift to the “Building Fund” and you also continued to give to the “General Fund.” This type of giving is potentially confusing to people who either don’t have a baseline for their “usual giving” or who aren’t able to really celebrate the total giving at Home Church in one single number. We believe we’re all on ONE MISSION—to help people: Find the Father. Experience the Kingdom. Look more like Jesus. Every day.

The Grow Initiative will last two years. In those two years, every gift given to Home Church will go to the Grow Initiative—to help us go Grow to further ministry, engage our community, and impact the Kingdom.

First, we are asking you to pray and seek God’s direction and what He is asking of you. Pray and commit yourself to God’s work in your life, to take the next step. Engage in using this GROW Guide to reflect and grow in the Lord share what you’re learning with your spouse, families or others about the journey that God has you on.

We are asking that you make a sacrificial commitment to gospel-centered generosity.

Finally, we ask that you prepare to see God’s work. Pray to see God work in, and through, Home Church. We are asking God to meet us an unprecedented way and we anticipate that He will awe us in this season as we GROW.

We are more focused on everyone at Home Church seeing that they’re giving as an integral part of the discipleship process and then being challenged by God to take the next step. The bulk of this notebook is focused on helping us dig into key Biblical principles that guide us in this area as we follow Jesus. This is our priority – 100% engagement in the process. Even if someone wrote us a check today for our secondary goal of $8.35M, we would still do this initiative. Whether we’re just starting in our giving journey or we’re very committed givers, we all have room to GROW in generosity.

Our current annual budget is $2.25M, multiplied by two years is $4.55M. That $4.55M is included in our secondary goal of $8.35M. Therefore, we are praying for an increase of $3.8M over the next two years.

If we reach our goal of 100% engagement, we will not need to get a mortgage. Through our faithful generosity, we will remain debt free.

Be creative as you explore ways you and your family can give towards GROW.

You might have some stocks, property or other items of that nature or you may have stored resources that God has blessed you with in the past that He just might be calling you to give during this time. Please let us know if you need assistance with facilitating gifts of property or stock, we would be happy to help you. Kurt Unger, our Director of Finance, is able to assist with all such gifts and answer any questions you might have. Contact Kurt at kurt@homechurchtx.com.

GROW was crafted specifically with you in mind. GROW is a one fund generosity initiative. It’s different from a traditional capital campaign where you are called to give an extra gift above and beyond normal giving thus creating two steps for people who aren’t yet giving. GROW is a call to sacrificial, Biblical generosity for absolutely everyone at Home Church. If you’ve never given before, this is your chance to get in the game with a committed sacrifice. We really hope you will.

We have taken into consideration, many many options. We have consulted with numerous engineers, architects, builders, realtors, the county, Bulverde/Spring Branch, and even TxDOT – making sure we leave no stone unturned as we sought ways for us to GROW. While there might be an option that we didn’t consider – we are confident that THIS is what God is calling us to do.

We definitely considered it. Prayer was a central part of our due diligence, and as we considered all of the options for building a new, bigger church building, God made it clear to us that it wasn’t what He was calling us to do, and that wasn’t the church He wanted us to be. We want to do everything, and only, what God calls us to do.

We are asking everyone to make a two year (24 months) commitment. The fulfillment period for your commitment will begin with Celebration Sunday and big offering in March 2025 and will end in February 2027.

GROW is about the vision for our church and our personal discipleship and giving as followers of Jesus. We believe that the local church is one of the most compelling missions to give toward and we would really love for you to join us in GROW. If you are ready for it, this is the perfect time for you to put a stake on the ground and make this your church. The best way to do this is to become a member at Home Church to start this process. Please visit homechurchtx.com/membership for more information on church membership.

GROW is all about your total, radical, sacrificial generosity to God’s mission at Home Church. We believe that God calls us to action in times of hardship just as much as He does in times of abundance, and that looks different for every person. GROW is about a heart change – one that is only accomplished by surrendering our lives completely over to God in this area of giving and declaring that we are a people who are unfinished. We would like for 100% of us to be a part of GROW so that we can all be supporting, loving, encouraging and praying for one another to the spiritually stretching season at Home Church. That commitment and “stretching” may look different for you in this time, beyond just a financial commitment. You can GROW while trusting God in faith by making a commitment that you don’t quite know how to fulfill right now, but that you believe God will provide for – pray and trust God to commit whatever He puts on your heart.

In cases of job loss, or other surprising financial challenges – of course your first commitment is to care for your family. We know that God is our provider, so your group, and our church would join you in prayer, and help you in any way we can. Our prayer is that even during a difficult season like that you would still find ways to follow Jesus in your generosity journey. Maybe for that season your generosity could be expressed differently, through smaller financial offerings, or through generously sharing your time, talent, or some other gift.

We have a couple different succession plans in place. We have an “emergency succession plan” in the event there’s an unforeseen accident that takes Larry’s life or forces him into retirement immediately. We also have a “planned succession plan” in place, allowing a year for a thorough, thoughtful, prayerful pastoral search, then a year of Larry working alongside the new pastor, and then hopefully keeping Larry on – in a part-time capacity for some time after that.

There are no dates on the plan, we don’t know when Larry will be ready to step down. When he does, the process will take a couple of years, and that transition will be planned, and slow – not rushed.