New Kitchen Fundraising 2025

Raising Funds for Our New Kitchen 
“The Heart of OUR Home” ❤️

To Friends and Family of FBCH,

It has been said the kitchen is the heart of the home, we know it is The Heart of OUR Home!
So much happens when you have a space to make, bake, create, share, and come together with a common purpose—a place to laugh, make new friends, and support one another. We miss the sense of family a church kitchen provides and we know we need a place to build bridges to our broader community.

Jesus had a knack for inviting himself over to homes for meals and it was around those tables that much of his surprising work of grace happened. He loved to tell stories about food—the Realm of God is like a woman who mixed yeast into three measures of flour; the Realm of God is like a father throwing a raucous dinner party to welcome home a son he thought was lost. Jesus fed multitudes, prepared breakfast for his friends, and told all of his followers to share a meal, bread and wine, as the primary way of remembering his presence with us.

As a community centered on the Way of Jesus, the kitchen is a central part of our shared life at FBCH. Many of us have stories about working in the kitchen, deepening our relationships with our faith family while plating squares for funeral receptions, preparing a fundraiser meal for a community organization, working as a youth group to cook dinner, or mixing up summer church muffins and being delighted by the addition of homemade Indian and Brazilian breakfast treats. We also have dreams about new ways to use the kitchen and community room as a hub for nurturing our growing and diverse community. It could be a gathering place for university students to share a meal and a place to prepare meals to extend justice-love, like casseroles for the St. Andrew’s Sunday Suppers. Perhaps most importantly, once again we will have the ability to gather together over Sunday lunch for interesting conversations.

Over the last few years, we have taken bold steps to transform our church home so that we can sustain the life of FBCH for generations to come. The next step in this transformation is coming together to build a new kitchen and community room. I hope you will find your own way to support the kitchen. It’s kind of like the parable about the flour and the yeast. Three measures of flour is a lot—some of us can give a lot. The bread also needed a bit of leaven—surely all of us can give something, knowing that it will all mix together to bring about our new kitchen.

When the kitchen is complete, I look forward to taking a cue from the parable about the Realm of God breaking in through a raucous dinner party—I can’t wait to plan our first Kitchen Party, celebrating our new kitchen and the abundant life we share together as people of Jesus!

Journeying Together,
Rusty