MINISTERING TO BUILD UP THE BODY OF CHRIST

What is the driving principle of the Church... and your church? Is it just getting people saved, out of hell and into heaven when they die? Is it some kind of “eternal fire insurance?” As you read in our article "HOW MANY DISABLED PEOPLE ATTEND YOUR CHURCH?," the purpose of the Church is to grow up in the faith, to become holy, mature Christians. How? – by ministering to build up the Body of Christ. The word "minister" in Greek also means "serve" – to be a "bondservant" which is someone who willingly binds himself to serve his master. And our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, taught His disciples how to serve / minister to "the poor, maimed, blind, and lame." This was His main target audience, as should be ours too!

In the article “HOW MANY DISABLED PEOPLE ATTEND YOUR CHURCH?” you can see several links to Scripture passages that clearly explain how this is supposed to work. St. Paul uses the word “edify,” a metaphor of construction work, to tell us that the Church is like the Old Testament Temple building: we are supposed to be building something for those who are Christ’s target audience, "the poor, maimed, blind, and lame," to enable and empower them so they too can be restored to fullness of life – maturity in Christ.

(Click Here to see our 5 sketches in full-screen mode.)

From the outset it is important to stress the need for local self-sufficiency in our Agape Restoration Communities. Although it is not necessarily harmful to help support poor and disabled people (2 Cor. 8:13-15), it must be done in a way that does not create dependency. Therefore we emphasize that local churches should be primarily responsible for their local branch of Agape Restoration Society. One of ARS's goals is to help local churches find a way to have their own meeting place, in a co-operative living center. In each Agape Restoration Community the church will own shares for the community room/chapel and restrooms, and the residents will own shares for their living unit. In our simplified plans we show up to 12 wheelchair-accessible living units or classrooms.

Each center will be organized as an autonomous branch of the ARS, associated with a local church, and will be responsible for its own local fund-raising and repaying loans from various sources. Local funds will be kept in local bank accounts until expended. Close supervision of and accounting for disbursing funds will insure that they are used strictly as designated and disbursed only when services have been performed. Each local branch of the ARS will be encouraged to train and send workers to help start new branches, and as its loans are paid off, to loan money interest-free to these new branches. Here's how you can donate for this project and/or join our mail list. Thanks!

Secularism has led to the de-Christianizing of the world. Former church buildings in the U.S. have been turned into taverns or private residences. In its extreme form of communism, about 250,000 church buildings in Russia were destroyed or confiscated and turned into breweries, warehouses, or "Lenin Houses of Culture." Secularization world-wide has diminished the role of the church in society and has led most people to lean on the state for answers to all their problems, leaving many churches shrinking or abandoned. Poor and disabled Christians must free themselves from the idea that "they" – meaning someone else: the state or other Christians – ought to pay to restore or build new churches. Secular governments have neither the wealth nor the will to pay for this, and there is not enough money in all the churches and other Christian organizations in the whole world to build the needed number of ordinary church buildings so that our countries can again be called "Christian nations."

But almost all Christians, including poor and disabled people, have a place to live. By exchanging their current home for a living unit in an ARC, they are providing a building where a church can gather to worship and fulfill its God-ordained ministry to "the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind." Christians already have the wealth needed to carry out the task of re-Christianizing their countries, in the form of their current homes. We need to restore the spirit of agape-love and mutual self-help community, then simply train and organize ourselves to do it.

A pastor or deacon of the associated church will serve as director of the local ARC branch. The director of ARS or director of a local branch (or a relative) must not control the finances: a completely separate person must manage the finances of each local ARC, separate from the church's finances. When a sufficient number of people have subscribed for shares, the local branch can take out a construction loan to build a new Agape Restoration Community. When a family sells its old house or apartment, the money from the sale of the old residence will be used to pay for its shares in the new ARC. Thus it is self-financing.

The ARC and its associated church will be two separate legal entities. Other people can be members of this church and not of the ARC "housing cooperative." The church associated with each ARC, represented by its clergy, is also a member of the ARC. Residents will be members of this cooperative that requires all adult residents of sound mind to be members of the church and affirm its doctrines and practices. This guarantees the building's perpetual Christian character by avoiding the problem of unbelievers in the second generation inheriting the units. A company that has built over 25 housing cooperatives in the Midwest U.S. for disabled persons and seniors, Realife, Inc., takes a similar approach. Here is what their old website stated –

What is a Housing Cooperative?
* Housing cooperatives are a form of multifamily homeownership. Shareholders or tenants join together to form a not-for-profit cooperative corporation which owns the building in which they live.
* Residents buy a share (membership) in the co-op, but the cooperative owns the building, land, and any common areas. Residents are entitled to live in a housing unit as part of their membership benefits.
* Members pay a fixed amount each month that covers basic expenses, including mortgage, property taxes, and maintenance. As share owners, members exercise control over their housing situation by electing a board of directors made up of other residents.
* This varies from a condominium or town home, where residents each own their individual housing units and are responsible for their own mortgage.

What are the Advantages?
Ownership: Members actually own the cooperative through their share ownership of the not-for-profit cooperative corporation; there is no equity investor or landlord.
Control: Residents govern the cooperative with assistance from the managing agent.
Cost of Operation: Occupancy charges are equal to only the actual cost of owning and operating the property. In a rental, rent generally goes up faster than actual costs because most landlords are in business to make a profit.
Individuality: Initial members are able to customize their dwelling units, including a choice of floor coverings, cabinet colors, and various structural changes.
Homeowner Tax Advantages: Mortgage interest and real estate taxes are tax deductible in a housing cooperative.
Equity Growth Potential: In a Realife Cooperative, members earn limited equity on their unit based on the amount of time they live in their home. The earning of limited equity keeps it affordable for the first members and future members.
Overall Value: Expenses in a cooperative are spread across the entire membership proportionately, making the cost of living generally lower than a comparable single-family home.

Three Steps to Your Cooperative Home
1. Reservation: By making a $500 refundable deposit, you are assigned a reservation number. This determines the order we follow with home selection.
2. Subscription: This is the home selection process. It involves unit selection (including type and location in the building) as well as a review of the costs associated with membership in the cooperative (share price and monthly fee). There is a $4500 down payment required to select the size of your living unit.
3. Share Collection: We collect the shares prior to construction. This is similar to a down payment on a single family home. We are required to collect the shares before we begin construction in return for the FHA insurance on the mortgage. There is only one mortgage on the property and it is held by the cooperative.

Description of buildings

The ARC is kept relatively small to maintain a feeling of "family," a sense of community. The huge apartment complexes in both East and West deprive people of rootedness and the sense of belonging to an "extended family" of like-minded people, and have a harmful effect on family cohesion and the raising of children. Each living unit will have a high-speed connection to the Internet. A larger living unit can be used for a family with many children, or a family that accepts and cares for other handicapped people, or a dormitory for volunteers and students. They can be built in various places in a city, to integrate disabled people into the larger society, rather than isolate them in one part of the city or outside of it. An ARC #3 can be built on 1/2 acre (30m x 50m) with 12 living units and a community room/chapel from 750 to 1,320 sq. ft. for community functions (shared meals, parties, exercise etc.) and worship. To have this center be a self-sustaining community, see https://permaculturism.com/how-much-land-does-it-take-to-feed-one-person/ - about 1/2 acre per person, or 15 acres for 30 people.

Just in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we now live, or in Ioshkar-Ola, capital of the Mari Republic in Russia, the city in which we lived, could use ten or more of such centers in various places around town. There are thousands of physically disabled people in these cities, many living in housing not built for disabled people. In the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia, both with growing numbers of elderly people, there is a need for hundreds or even thousands of these centers. The disabled people from U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or from Russia's wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Ukraine, number in the tens of thousands. This doesn't include people who are disabled from birth, illness or accident. In the U.S. and Russia there are also millions of orphans who need adoption or foster care. These people are among the neediest, because it is difficult for them to receive training adapted to their needs and find well-paying jobs.

Due to changing costs for construction in each locality, even a rough cost estimate of each center is not possible here. But keep in mind that if construction costs change, so does the value of the local homes that future residents will sell to take a living unit in an Agape Restoration Community. The majority of the cost for the entire building will be paid for by the living unit residents and participants in each local branch of ARS. We will need to have these sketches re-drawn by a local architect to meet local building codes. You can see and print out this article including these plans at our Web site https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/ARC-Article-Eng.pdf.
 

 

Conclusion

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'"

- Matthew 25: 31-40

Now, if you'd like to meet others who want to Build the ARC, join "The ARC" Chat/Video Forum!