Buildings and Newspapers

One of the biggest challenges for a new church is finding a place to meet. There are several options to consider: you can meet at the pastors house with a small group, you can rent a movie theater or school auditorium, share the building with an existing church, the possibilities are quite vast really. There is one place in Oneonta that Laura and I feel would be very practical for our needs, it is an old grocery store on River Street with an apartment upstairs that we could live in. It is a building that needs work but would be great to get us started.
We have not purchased it yet, but are going through the proper channels in order to do so. This means real estate agents, finical brokers, lawyers, engineers, contractors, and city offices. Please pray for us about all this, especially for Wednesday, September 16 when we have a public meeting with the Oneonta Planning Committee about the proposed River Street property.
If this meeting goes well, then Laura and I can proceed, move to Oneonta, and have a central location for our ministry.
I received an unexpected surprise in the middle all this when I got a call from Jake Palmateer, a local news paper reporter, about our plans. I answered his questions and to my surprise, the next day there was a generous article about our building plans and the backgrounds of Laura and I.
You can read the full article here: The Daily Star
Here are the highlights:

ONEONTA _ The city Planning Commission will consider a proposal for a new church in the Sixth Ward when it meets Wednesday.
A couple from Missouri who recently moved to the area are proposing to convert a former grocery store at 148 River St. into an independent church and residence.
Proposals for a coin-operated laundry on Chestnut Street and a new restaurant on Main Street are also on the agenda for the meeting, which will start at 7 p.m.
Kaler Carpenter said he and his wife, Laura, did a national search for a small college community in which to start their church. They discovered Oneonta and visited in July before permanently moving to Otsego County a month ago, he said.
“Oneonta had everything I was looking for,” Kaler Carpenter, 26, said. “It just came across methodically through research.”
Carpenter said the name of the church will likely be The Redemption Movement and said it would be a “Christian Protestant Bible church.”
The church would have seating for 10 people in the 26- by-30-foot building, according to the site plan submitted to the city.
The building would serve as the meeting space as the congregation gets started ,and the church would look to move to a larger space after it grows, he said.
Carpenter said once the church has enough members, he would look to have it legally recognized as a church. Carpenter said he and his 28-year-old wife met while they were students at Central Bible College in Springfield, Mo., and married three years ago.
The purchase of the building from owner Donald Lindberg would occur only if the site plan is approved by the city, he said.
If the site plan is not approved, he and his wife would look for another location in Oneonta, he said. The couple is renting an apartment in the town of Maryland pending their move to Oneonta.

So there it is! I don't won't to go too far into building details right now, since nothing is official yet. But who knows, this old vacant store might be the home of the new church. It is neat that something good came out of this long and complicated process. God is faithful!