Dear Harvest Church Family & Friends,
We will “address the mental health needs in Yellowstone County by pursuing the construction of a building for the Harvest Counseling Center.”
And with that one sentence, and a unanimous vote by the Church Council, Harvest Church is following the redirected flow of the river of blessing God is rushing to our region. You can watch/listen to the eight-minute "annual meeting," and the whole sermon HERE.
By way of brief summary: Headwaters is a two-year, one-fund generosity initiative designed to fund the daily operation of our church as well as a new worship center and repurposed building for children and youth. We concluded the two years in December, but money is still coming in. At the end of the day the total will be about $12 million. That leaves us roughly $4 million for a building that was originally going to cost $9 million. Days before signing papers with our lending agency, the pandemic turned the world, and the economy, upside down. The cost of our building went up $3 million almost overnight. Two years of rising inflation has now raised the cost to $16+ million — a number that is well out of reach for us.
Through many months of prayer, conversation, and debate, the Pastors and Church Council agreed God will be pleased if we acknowledge the new “fluvialgeomorphology” (it’s in the sermon) of the river and use the Headwaters money to address the mental health crisis in our region. God has changed our course and we are just going with the flow.
After nine months of due diligence, the Harvest Counseling Center officially opened in September 2021. We now have an experienced clinical director, three counselors, three offices, and we are planning on more. The architect is rolling, and we will provide more office and learning space as soon as possible.
For some of us, this news is bittersweet. We acknowledge the great need of Christ-centered, biblically-sound, clinically-informed, church-based mental health services, but are grieved that the worship center and kids/youth space we have been longing for and giving to for so long, are not going to be a reality in the near future. If you are mad or sad about that, me too! I get it. As a matter of fact, I will conclude our sermon series, “How To Get Through What You’re Going Through” on February 13 talking about loss and grieving. I’ll share some of my process of the “death of a dream,” and maybe it will be helpful as you grieve too.
If you’re like, “Wait, What?!” I understand, but this email is long enough. The best thing you can do to understand what we think God is doing is to listen to that sermon (FluvialGeomorphology Sermon). If you have comments or questions, you can reply to this email.
Hope to see you soon.
Shalom,
