Envision news March 2012

Envision Leadership

Here is the current Envision leadership team:

Envision has increased giving by over 200% by adding multiple new financial partners. To join the Envision team, please feel free to contact us.

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IMPACTING 1

by Chris Jones

In September of 2011 there were 473,937 people officially listed as unemployed. Those of you who are not numbers people are already bored.But there is a good chance that you know one of those 473,937 people. You know the impact unemployment has had on their family. You know where they live now, and where they used to live before their house was foreclosed.

No one wants to be a number, we want to be seen as individuals. Jesus cared about individuals. He cared about the individual woman who touched his robe. He cared about the individual little man up in a tree. Like those individuals, whose stories are recorded in the Bible, we all have our own story.

The biggest thrill for me as the Lead Servant of CITYChurch is that I get to hear and participate in people’s stories. The single mother who was recently baptized into Jesus. The woman who prayed for a church in her neighborhood for months until she started seeing a CITYChurch sign at the corner by her apartment each week. The family that looks so normal on the outside, but the reality is that without the guidance of Christian people through CITYChurch, they would not be a family today.

If there is one number I like to share it would be 1. As a staff we listed every person who had visited CITYChurch and talked about their story. Out of all those people, 1 family was truly connected to a church before they came to CITYChurch. I once heard that “Everyone deserves to have a church family” and the people we see each Sunday are people who needed a church family. Through the grace of God and help of Envision, people in the heart of Winston-Salem, NC are becoming a part of a church family in ways which they never even dreamed. 

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

by Allen Brown   

What goes around, comes around. Quite the cliché, but nonetheless true in a very special way for Envision. Back in the early 1990’s, Envision (then known as Piedmont Evangelizing Fellowship) invested in a new church and gave $15,000 to the Eastside Christian Church in Sanford to help purchase a five-acre tract for a future site. Regrettably, Eastside Christian Church was never able to relocate there and in 2009 the church ceased to exist and the property was given to Envision. While we are disappointed that the Sanford church no longer exists, we rejoice that they looked to the future and decided to help Envision continue its work of starting new churches in North Carolina. What goes around, comes around!

In June 2010, Envision placed the property up for sale, but it drew very little interest over the next sixteen months. However, in October 2011 several prospective buyers made offers and in November an agreement was made with Iglesia Penetcostes Ebenezer (a Hispanic church associated with the Assemblies of God) to purchase the land for net proceeds of $32,500. The sale was contingent on the property meeting the requirements of the Lee County Health Services Department and approval of the buyer’s site plan by the Technical Review Committee of Lee County. We learned in mid-November that approval had been given to the buyer and a closing was scheduled for late November. However, the attorney for the buyer learned that the buyer was not incorporated and he suggested this be done prior to the closing. This originally delayed the closing, but the transaction was cleared at the end of last year and $32,500 was deposited into Envision’s account. Praise the Lord!

What a blessing that it has come back to Envision so that it can be re-invested in future churches! These previously-invested funds will have come back more than doubled. Isn’t it a wonderful thing how God has made what has gone around, come around again? For Envision, the cliché has become a reality!