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READY TO MAKE A PLEDGE?
Letter From Pastor Phil Manginelli
First, I want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who is part of The Square. Thank you to everyone who has partnered in our journey. Thank you to everyone who has prayed, given, and believed in the future of our church. In the last ten years, God has done far more than I ever imagined. I truly believe I am one of the luckiest pastors alive. It is a privilege and an honor to live life with you, and there is no place I'd rather be than with you at The Square. In this booklet, you'll hear about:
- our identity as a church family
- our search for a home where we can flourish as a community
- our vision for the new building
- our plan for how to get from here to there
- our need and invitation
In these pages, I want to paint the big picture of our season and share how God is leading as we navigate the gap between where we are and where we are going.
But above all, I want to emphasize that you matter more than any building. When I think about who we are and the future God is leading us into, I don't think about properties. Our church is made up of flesh and blood, not brick and mortar. Our future is a people, not a location. It doesn't matter whether we meet in a garage or the most beautiful new building we can imagine! We are a church that loves Jesus. And a church that loves Jesus can change a city, no matter where it gathers.
I believe this new building is God's direction for our community. I believe we need to find a home to flourish in and be faithful to all that God has spoken over us. I am inviting you clearly and intentionally to partner with me in prayer and financial support. But all of those things are secondary to my love for you and my commitment to lead you in pastoral honesty and integrity. You are free, you are loved, and none of this invitation comes through manipulation or disingenuous desire. Even as I clearly and boldly ask you to give, you have to know that my commitment to you will never have anything to do with what you can or cannot contribute. You are my church, and I pick you wherever we gather on Sundays.
I invite you to pray and consider all that we will put in front of you, and to trust the Lord with your response. If you give, give to him. All that we do, we do for him. He alone is the one that we trust. Let us move forward in the encouragement of 2 Corinthians 9:7, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
Know you're loved.
Phil
Our Identity
A little over ten years ago a handful of friends moved from Seattle to Atlanta with a longing in their hearts to plant a church that would transform a city. What started as mere hopes and dreams became the unchanging identity of who we are. The vision of The Square began as a simple picture: a church that belonged to its community and a community that belonged to its church. We are called to be a town square of renewal. This led to our name and guides our vision to this day.
To bring clarity to this vision, we have eight guiding values that encompass our central identity and expression. Together, these create the foundation, direction, and calling of The Square.
1. We Are Jesus-Centered
2. We Long For The Tangible Presence Of God
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A single guiding conviction lies at the core of who we are: we love Jesus. In the complexity of life, we believe this posture anchors all things. We have been loved by Jesus, so now our greatest desire is to love him in return and create a community where his love can be found. In a world where truth feels unknowable, we believe Jesus is findable, and he is welcoming us home. Our values of being Jesus-centered in all that we do, and being a people who long for the tangible presence of God, lead us to our central identity.
3. We Are Committed To Spiritual Formation
4. We See The Church As Family
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We gather as Christ-followers, unified in our allegiance to Jesus and one another. This commitment invites us to lives of intentional spiritual formation through discipleship and to reclaim church as family. We aim to treat people as Jesus would as the tangible expression of our community. Our values of committing to spiritual formation and discipleship as the way we live, and viewing the church as a family above all else, lead us to the foundation of our identity.
5. We Live Spirit-Led Lives
6. We Are Missionaries To Our City
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We embody this mission by partnering with God in his redemptive work. Our reconciliation with God leads us to find our place in the purposes of Jesus on the earth. We are empowered by The Holy Spirit to function as every-day missionaries to the world around us. As a sent people, life with the Holy Spirit and embracing sacrificial mission is the direction of our identity.
7. We Exist For Kingdom Expansion
8. We Hold To Biblical Faithfulness
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Citizens of the Kingdom of God serve beyond the needs and borders of their own community. As followers of Jesus in a secular age, we are compelled to give our lives to create gospel movements and contend for the resistance and renewal of biblical faithfulness everywhere. Our community is uniquely called to spread the message of Jesus to the ends of the earth and empower the church to be courageous witnesses in our day. Our values of participating in the expansion of the Kingdom of God, and holding to biblical faithfulness in a secular age, lead us to the calling of our identity.
Our Search
In 2013, The Square began as a Sunday night house church. The first year we gathered in the living room and then in the garage. By early 2014, The Square grew beyond what a residence could sustain and moved to our current location. Our community began to rehabilitate the broken-down property that became the building we gather in today. Progressing from Sunday nights to Sunday mornings, from one service to multiple, our church family steadily grew.
In 2019, we began to discern that the limitations of our church property required an answer. These days held challenging conversations because we loved, and still love, the building that God gave us. From our first service in March 2014 to today, it has been a place of transformation and healing for many. We also own the building outright and being debt-free has empowered us to be stewards of mission and ministry. As we pursued options, we arrived at two important conclusions:
Our true need was for a church home that could facilitate the fullness of our mission. Even though limited physical space clearly impacted our Sunday mornings, we required a new building to be faithful to our identity, not simply to hold growing weekly gatherings.
We refused to allow this need to lead us into unwise decisions that put our community in a position of financial harm or limitation. As much as we sought answers, we resolved to only move forward with Christ-centered stewardship that did not burden our church with disproportionate debt.
Soon after, we walked through the challenges of 2020 and knew the grace of God had kept us from adding a complex building transition to so much uncertainty. For a short season, our Sunday services adjusted, but by the beginning of 2021, we found ourselves facing the same problem. To create space, we expanded to four services, but the cost on our pastoral staff became too high. Even in the face of urgent demand, we returned to three. Today, our three Sunday gatherings are at maximum capacity, often with people standing.
We have maximized every inch available, moving our offices off-campus and using the building morning, afternoon, and evening nearly day of the week. Every ministry in our church works together to share the same few spaces, but the greatest tension is the ministries in our heart not yet launched because we have nowhere to house them. As challenging as our small space is, the actual cost is not in the sharing of limited square footage, but in the inability to move forward.
Through it all, we have never stopped praying and pursuing answers for a property that could meet our needs. We have patiently waited for God to provide, knowing he would eventually lead us to our new home. In that time, we returned to our original desire to expand on The Square’s current property. For years we assumed the only answer would be a different location, but now we have found an answer which allows us to stay. What once was a buried dream has found life.
This opportunity not only keeps us in the community we never wanted to leave, but empowers us to flourish and fulfill God’s assignment over our family. The new building will provide for our growing community, allow us to launch and lead all of our ministries with faithfulness, and minimize the financial costs an entirely new property would require.
Whether you became part of The Square in a living room in 2013 or a Sunday morning service last week, we invite you into our future. In the end, we are not concerned about buildings, but about stewarding the transformational power of Jesus for our city. We are a church that loves Jesus, and it is time to step into our next season. Thank you for participating in the future God is building.
Our Vision
Four words capture our vision:
Flourish, Equip, Transform, and Send.
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For anyone who is part of The Square, there is a common understanding of the challenges we face in our current facility. From services with standing room only to cramped kids spaces to two bathrooms and everything in-between, we experience our limitations every day. But amidst the tension, the vision behind our new building is centered around helping our church flourish.
Greater space means children’s and discipleship atmospheres designed specifically with the goal of Jesus capturing the hearts of the next generation. A larger sanctuary will allow us enough room for all who long to come, as well as space for genuine community to be formed. Ministries will have dedicated environments allowing them to meet the needs of people without persistent logistical challenges. The Square will be allowed not only to grow, but to flourish in serving our community.
Flourish
to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment
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The Square is called to be a faithful witness that proclaims truth over our city. We do this through equipping believers with biblical literacy, practical discipleship, and helpful, orthodox responses to cultural challenges. We host yearly schools (School of the New Testament, School of Biblical Studies, and School of Discipleship) as well as focused, short-term programs (School of Sexual Ethics, School of the Holy Spirit, and School of Racial Reconciliation). These schools are the foundation of equipping our church and our city.
Our new building will not only allow these schools to thrive and be held more regularly, but it will enable us to launch a next season of equipping. We plan to launch a School of Prayer and the School of the Old Testament, as well as quarterly workshops and activations to grow as followers of Jesus. We are launching a team to establish Schools of the New Testament in churches around the world and we will have space to train, equip, and send. We are called to create resources and discipleship materials for the sake of the church. New infrastructure will bolster all that God has asked us to do in our call to equip.
Equip
supply with the necessary items for a particular purpose
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The Square has four places of focus for local mission and pursuing God’s will for our community as it is in heaven: foster care, tutoring, anti-human trafficking, and caring for our neighbors in need of food or resources. Right now all four of those ministries are active in our church, but have no home base from which to function fully. Our limitations have forced us to move these ministries off campus, and only operate in partial capacity.
Over time, our new building will allow for the expansion of our foster care and anti-human trafficking partnerships. Our Up Tutoring program will be able to lead from our own campus and continue to grow, and we will move towards a permanent food bank. On top of this, we hope to launch new programs that meet the needs of our neighborhood: after-school initiatives, community resourcing, and education partnerships. We will be able to be the hands and feet of Jesus in tangible new ways.
Transform
to change in composition, structure, character, or condition
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The Square is called to be a missional hub that sends church plants, missionaries, and leaders throughout our world. Right now we support five global missionaries and have sent out two church plants. We have countless people who feel called to expand the Kingdom of God but lack the ability to actively train and send them.
We dream of a church planting apprenticeship, where we can incubate church planters and their teams to send them into new cities. We desire to launch a Spanish speaking congregation to serve the significant Hispanic community in our city. We will be able to host pastors' gatherings and trainings to equip leaders from around the world to lead faithfully. We plan to launch missionary training in order to send those within our own community who are called to other nations. The next season of The Square is a movement where we can be a hub of sending throughout our city, nation, and world.
Send
to dispatch someone to convey a message; to cause to go
Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
Our Plan
Our property has more than enough space to build upon. However, before we can begin construction, there are a few land use requirements that must be addressed. Per city codes, we must preserve the integrity of our stream and ensure that construction is environmentally friendly. This site work will cost approximately $1,346,175 and is included in the total costs. We will remove both of the smaller parsonage houses currently on our property, while keeping our current sanctuary as a permanent building within our campus. Our new facility will be built along the entire east side of the property with an asphalt parking lot that will extend from the new construction and wrap around the back side of our present church neighboring Campbell High School.
Timeline:
Pre-construction, Design, & Permitting:
4 Months
Construction, Site Work, Exterior, & Interior:
11 Months
Approximate Timeline:
15 Months
Sanctuary: 8800 sq ft
Includes: Vestibule, Nursing Mothers Room, Video Production Room, Sound Booth
Seating Capacity: 610
Atrium/Foyer: 4050 sq ft
Includes: Vaulted Ceilings, Natural Light, Cafe Space,
Storage, Kids Check-In
Children’s Ministry: 7200 sq ft
Includes: 10 Classrooms, Dedicated Children’s Bathrooms, Large Multipurpose Room with Stage, Mid-Week Ministry Space
Furnishings & Equipment:
Includes: Sound System and Equipment, Projectors, Chairs, Cabinetry, Art and Design Elements, Hospitality Equipment, Tables, Security System, Safety Equipment
Total Price:
Building Price:
$5,298,770
Furniture & Equipment:
$700,000
Total Price:
$5,998,770
Partnering Info:
This is a moment for faith and radical generosity. While we have a significant financial foundation and borrowing power, we will not be able to build without support. We invite you to pray and give, with honor and blessing to contribute what you feel is right. Every amount, large or small, is significant to us and to Jesus. As you pray, ask God to create a way forward with miraculous provision for our needs. If you have questions please reach out to us. The invitation of stepping into our future is something we carry together.
Ways To Give:
Sacrificially Give:
To reach our goal, it will take sacrifice. You can make a one time donation or set up recurring giving toward this project through our online giving. Make sure you select “building fund.”
Pledge:
You can pledge a monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly amount toward this project. During our Sunday services we will give you direction for how you can do that.
Recruit Others:
We understand there are many with resources that are looking to increase Kingdom efforts. Consider who in your world could participate with us. This could be an individual, church, business, or organization.
Get Creative:
Think creatively with us by considering how you can raise money. It could be a garage sale or other fundraising ideas. Also, if you have connections to professional construction resources and equipment - including flooring, paint, finishing materials, cabinetry, sound equipment, or anything that can help us reduce costs - please reach out to us.
How To Give:
Online:
Go to thesquare.org/give, click “Give Now” and select “Building Fund” from the drop down menu. (Please note all online giving are subject to processing fees - the most cost effective way is to give online is ACH which only cost $.30 for any donation.)
Check:
Use the giving envelope during service and make sure you identify what the check is for on a separate note.
Or Mail Checks to:
The Square Church
981 Powder Springs St Se
Smyrna, GA 30080
Unconventional Ways to Give:
To those who look for how they could donate stocks, crypto currency, etc. Please contact our finance office and we will happily work with you to make the appropriate steps.
Our Need
We need two things more than anything else: faith and trust. Our leadership has a practical and wise plan, but this doesn’t change the posture we must carry throughout this process. God is our provider, and we need his leadership and guidance more than anything else. All of our next steps are through him, and our plan is to partner with his leadership in meeting our needs. We believe everything God does requires faith, and we are being invited to trust him in his care over us.
To reach our goal, we need to raise $2M over two phases. Phase One will be raising $1.3M to facilitate the construction of our new property. Phase Two will raise the remaining $700K to furnish and equip the building. We will launch construction upon the completion of Phase One. That allows time during construction to complete Phase Two.
The total project will be just under $6M. We are able to use previously given funds, internal savings, and borrowing power for the cost of the whole project. We have always felt peace that a portion of our needs would be met by taking a mortgage, but we refuse to take out a loan more than is sustainable for our future. We qualify for higher amounts, but our church council and executive team have placed the maximum debt we are willing to assume at $2.5M.
Even though this is a significant loan, it will be a sustainable mortgage that our current giving already makes room for without changing any of our budget or needs. If we raise more than $2M we will take out a smaller mortgage, with a plan to pay it off as quickly and ferociously as possible. We have prayed and fasted for months over this specific question and believe God had given us peace to move forward and trust that we will not only raise what we need, but will pay off our mortgage quickly through his provision.
This is a simple breakdown of the plan:
Pre-existing Funds: $1,500,000
Mortgage: $2,500,000
Phase One Fundraising: $1,300,000
Phase Two Fundraising: $700,000
Total Funds: $6,000,000
Our desire is to complete Phase One and initiate construction in time to have our first services in the new building by Easter 2025. We trust God with his timing and we are at peace if the process requires more patience. We will walk in faith and wisdom, making decisions in unity as we move forward.
In this process, we desire not only radical generosity from our community, but miraculous provision from unexpected places. God provides for the stories he writes. We can't wait to go on this journey of faith together. It will undoubtedly be marked by growth and sacrifice. However, I am reminded that it is our deep delight to reflect the nature of God’s generosity to the world around us. I invite you to pray our giving liturgy alongside me as we move towards our future.