Thanks, Terry, for filling us in on many of the ongoing happenings here at CCC. Our voting this morning concentrates on facilities issues but there is no lack of attention to all the other ways our church continues to operate. We are clearly building in lots of ways.

I am speaking on behalf of the 10/4 committee but have no monopoly on information. When I am done I'll be pleased to recognize anyone who wishes to speak. But I want to start by acknowledging that we have come to this meeting because all of us are intent on turning our face to the future and putting our vision as we have captured it in the Prospectus into the hands of the experts who can design the spaces we are saying we want.

We have a wonderful opportunity to be both serious and joyful today. We are being serious in doing our corporate business with due deliberation and we can be joyful in making ready for a significant, probably once in a generation, commitment to our future as part of the body of Christ. If we adopt the Prospectus we will take a significant new step, but by no means the final step, in meeting our vision that our facilities must help fulfill our mission and assist our growth.

We come to this point as part of a flowing stream of activity -- not that long ago we celebrated our Jubilee Year and dared to begin to dream for the next fifty (50) years of CCC. We even more recently participated in an extensive Self-study. Its sixth aspiration is crystal clear:

We want to be a church that has well-designed and maintained properties adequate and appropriate for our needs.

The Self-study listed various desirable facility changes if we were to remain here on Colesville Road. And then, at our 1997 Annual Meeting, we affirmed the Relocation Task Force recommendation to stay here. We decided then that we needed a facility to enhance our growth to make "a 21st century CCC practical and exciting at the same time." That's what we are potentially making progress on today.

A bit more history. (All of this was on the Tate Gallery Wall these past weeks but not everyone is a speed reader.) At our Annual Meeting last May, we received a draft facilities report from the Trustees. We should be grateful that people like Jackie Walters were wise enough at that time to have us set a timeline for dealing with facilities matters -- so that we would have to actually stop talking about them and really make a decision. For some of you, I know, today is months overdue. Well, here we are, after a summer and September of chats and forums and Board discussions and, well, you all know what you've done.

I think that we have provided numerous opportunities for our dreamers to come forward. It isn't always rapid to find a voice for your dreams but we have waited a bit in hopes that even the far reaches of your personal visions have found expression one way or another. We even have written statements from a number of people who could not be here today. They are uniformly supportive of moving forward.

Let me speak just a bit more about what adopting the Prospectus means. The discussions you've all had these past months and weeks have resulted in many specifics, more than the Prospectus we're about to vote on can list. We have gotten a great set of details from all our various meetings, details which are recorded and accessible. If we adopt the Prospectus and then proceed to authorize the Moderator and Trustees to continue to move forward (that will be our second motion), I assure you that whoever comes to us to try to do our facilities work will be invited to a meeting where the details will be provided. This meeting will be required before any responses are designed.

Our Prospectus has grown out of all the past work and meetings but, significantly, now embodies (as best we could) the dreams and vision of our entire congregation. Thank you all so much for being here today to allow for such an affirmation. Just as scripture says, all our parts are important and our timetable has tried to honor everyone. The Prospectus is our composite statement of the most frequent aspects of all our dreams.

Understanding that details are on the record and will be presented in the next stage with our "bidders," a vote of "AYE" will move us into a focused planning cycle under the guidance of our Trustees and those others whom our Moderator names to be on needed, probably small, committees. Please realize that the succeeding timetable is clear: The committees are to come back to the congregation within roughly five months (February, March 1999). (I add for myself, though, please don't come every single week.)

I have pointed out that our Prospectus is prepared as a composite vision. Our vision truly reflects the best array of characteristics we have thought of for what I term a truly hospitable facility that will serve a lot of people for the next fifty years. We want it to support enough members so that our community and its service to the world may be robust. We want enough members so that we can help our children learn about Christian love and compassion and justice. We want enough members so that we may continue to worship enthusiastically and have significant spiritual and educational and musical leadership.

In a real way, we are presenting architects and others with a design problem. We are going to them as the experts in developing solutions. They have the expertise to understand and use whatever complex interrelationships there are among all the things we want: our parking and entrance, sanctuary, social hall, children and youth facilities, infrastructure. And they'll hear all our details.

If we approve the Prospectus and also our second motion, then Terry will not only set up a Building & Design Committee, she'll also establish a Capital Campaign Committee. That group, on our behalf, would contract with a financial consultant, probably one who specializes in faith-based church campaigns, to assess and estimate for us our financial giving capacity. We'll use that financial assessment to help us, five or so months from now, make the necessary decisions about what to actually blueprint. Preliminary independent estimates of our financial capacity, by the way, have given us the assurance that it is feasible to move ahead on the Prospectus.

Even when we meet in early 1999, though, we'll be fine tuning our design. We will be deciding on specific facilities options in the context of financial prospects. That meeting will be to decide to get blueprints for our selected design and also to commit ourselves to a fund raising campaign for a once-in-a-generation pledge to generate our financial backing of our most hospitable foundation for the future.

Finally, if we do decide to keep going in early 1999, then we'll be back here approximately one calendar year from today at another meeting. At that time we will decide whether to spend the money we have pledged on the facility we have had designed that comes as close as possible to our vision. If it sounds a bit like the house that Jack built, I'm irreverent enough to suggest that it will be the house that Christ continues to build.

And on a purely personal note, I cannot help but think that that would be a wonderful first birthday promise and present for the brand new grandson shared by Marilyn and Dick Meyer and myself.

Now, we are ready for your contributions.