Or Both? (This is not our roof by the way!)
Our parish is in the proverbial (actually literal) ‘fix the roof’ situation; we have a roof in need of serious repair costing $92 thousand and at the same time we also have great potential for evangelical and justice ministry in our urban parish that has gone under resourced for far too long. We are just beginning to minster to African refugees just down the street, as an example.
What to do? The ‘boat’ is still in a ‘turnaround’ and I am not sure we’re healthy enough for a capital campaign. God seems to be saying ‘wait’ but the facility might not be able to (so what is God really saying?).
Wisdom from the neophytes wanted!
Our church is in a similar crisis, except that our bill is 800 thousand to 1 million and the repairs are and absolute necessity.
God gave you the building. You are stewards of this resource. A bad roof can cause greater damage costing even more money. It is difficult, but I think you need to fix your roof.
I know this is kind of a late reply, but maybe have a silent/live auction to raise money for repairs and ministry (split the proceeds 50/50). Or use the funds you already have for the roof and the proceeds of the auction can go to the ministry or vice versa. Our local church had a silent/live auction to raise funds and they raised over $10k. It was a great time too. Have members and regular attenders donate items, baked goods, and service items and solicit local businesses to donate items as well. At our “FUNraiser” as they called it, there were Red Sox tickets, Celtics tickets, frequent flyer miles, and cleaning, babysitting hours, painting of rooms auctioned off. They also had food for dinner (it was in the evening), pizza, hot dogs, sandwiches, soda, water, etc. that were for sale (~ $1-2 each) and that money went to the proceeds as well. It was truly a fun time – and everyone dressed up (to make it fun for kids too), so it was a costume party/fundraiser/dance party. Just a suggestion.