A New Home for St. Thomas!

We have gathered in a variety of places in our short history. We rented the beautiful Day Chapel in the State Botanical Garden for years before moving to the Foundry Building for a Tabernacle Phase of growth alongside building out the Parish House for offices and events.

At our annual meeting in January we let everyone know we have been looking for a new facility due to ongoing challenges in our current Sunday morning space. Many of you have been praying about this over the last few months. Many have even been praying for our facility needs for years.

Thanks be to God who has truly opened a door for us and gone ahead of us in every way!!

This Summer we will be moving to 105 Timothy Place Athens, GA 30606, which has been the home of Edwards Chapel Baptist Church. The church is transitioning to a non-profit ministry called City on the Hill Mission. We’ll share some office space with them and our rent will help fund this great local ministry.

Our first Sunday will be a “soft-launch” on June 22nd at 9 AM & 11 AM. We will have classrooms on the main level for St. Thomas Kids as Family Worship continues. Later, St. Thomas Kids will move from the main level classrooms to a much larger, dedicated space in the upstairs hallway.

Coming out of our Tabernacle Phase of growth, this feels like a new Sanctuary Phase! We’ll have a Sanctuary set apart and dedicated for worship. We’ll have classrooms, grounds, a fellowship hall, and plenty of parking as a base for mission and ministry. It is truly miraculous what the Lord has done and how He has opened this door for us! Thanks be to God! Thanks also to our Facility Search Team for all of their hard work and time - Deacon Tex Bagley, Oliver Pryor, and Robbie Smith.

The Sanctuary Fund & Next Steps:

We set an ambitious goal to raise at least $250,000 by Pentecost Sunday (6/8/25). Thanks be to God for his provision and the generosity of his people! We met our goal and are able to get started on many of the projects needed for our new church home!! You can still make a gift to the Sanctuary Fund and there are projects on deck, but our main phase of initial fund-raising has now concluded!

Over the next few weeks we have work days (6/14 & 6/21), our last Sunday at the Foundry Building (6/15), and our first Sunday at the new church home. We will have a “soft open” on June 22nd. We will be working on projects all Summer aiming to have most projects completed by early September. Save the Date for a building consecration and dedication on Friday, September 5th. Our Fall Kickoff Sunday will be on September 7th!

Here are some of the projects and needs in front of us:

• Sanctuary Remodel - flooring, lights, paint, windows, cleaning, platform, kneeling rail, Bibles, prayer books, etc.

• Bathrooms - significant remodeling of existing bathrooms. Updated - add bathrooms for new St. Thomas Kids hallway upstairs.

• Ready Classrooms - flooring, paint, cleaning, supplies and more for St. Thomas Kids. Updated - complete renovation of upstairs hallway for St. Thomas Kids.

• Fellowship Hall - work with City on the Hill Mission, tables and chairs, kitchen, coffee supplies, etc. Updated - complete renovation of Fellowship Hall needing significant work.

• Grounds - landscaping and additional playground equipment.

• Parking Lot - repair and striping.

• Signage - install St. Thomas signage by the road and add directional signage around campus.

• Moving - transitioning from the Classic Center, moving items, setting up utilities and other items.

• Maintenance - gathering savings for regular maintenance costs and new issues that might arise.

Note that we had an initial agreement and plan with Edwards Chapel Baptist Church / City on the Hill Missions on how to differentiate and share the campus. In the last few months we have modified that agreement to provide St. Thomas with much more classroom space than originally envisaged. We also now have generally exclusive use of the Fellowship Hall and the opportunity to remodel and renovate it. These updates are now reflected on the general project list.

There are several frequently asked questions that we want to address:

What about the Parish House? We will continue to use the Parish House for most of our staff offices and as an additional space for ministry events and gatherings. We have a really favorable rate on the monthly rent for it through a memorial trust and it is in an incredibly strategic location near downtown and the UGA Campus.

What about the stuff purchased for the Foundry Building with the Tabernacle Fund? When we had the chance to purchase items for the Foundry Building, we tried to get things that we could also use and repurpose in a more permanent space. Most of what we purchased can be utilized in our new home. The main thing we won’t bring with us and use regularly are many of the carts and items that facilitated the set up and tear down process. Everything we purchased with the Tabernacle Fund has given us a great head start on what we need to move into a true church building.

How long will we be at this new home? We thought we would be at the Foundry Building for several years. However, it became apparent that we needed to look for a new option and the Lord clearly opened this door. Our initial agreement is for 5 years plus the option to renew for another 5 years. We also have a right of first refusal to purchase the church building and land. We hope this is a really long-term home for us!

What other options did we consider? We have looked at lots of options over the last 6 months including conversations with many churches, potential commercial leases, and even purchasing land and building. The commercial leases we were looking at were all 2-3 times the amount of rent each month and needed 2-4 times the amount of upfront costs to make them suitable for our purposes for a lot less square footage. We did look at the option to build, but buying land and building in the areas we would want to be would have required at least $5 million or more dollars. So we are really grateful for what the Lord has opened up at this new homel!