Narthex One Newsletter – Q3 2023
Two steps forward…
A message from Rob Boyer, CEO
Beautiful Fall to everyone!
I'll get the bad news out of the way first: our Grace Paseo Church was vandalized. They broke into a fenced area to steal copper and ruined our HVAC unit. A $17,000 insurance claim later and everything is back to normal, but obviously a frustrating development. On that note, we are also struggling with the homeless population and recurring break-ins at Lady of Lourdes. Hopefully, a new and upgraded alarm system being installed this week will serve as a deterrent.
Otherwise, things are good! Demand remains high, and our tenants are thriving. Providence School at Grace Paseo won a $50,000 grant for security and surveillance upgrades. These will become permanent improvements to the church. We have a deal, in principle, for the sale of Blue Ridge Trinity for $803,000. The local church buyers will rent from us for nine months while they raise capital and then close on September 1, 2024. Also at Blue Ridge Trinity, we won an appeal from Jackson County and cut our property tax by about 20%. Now it’s just ridiculously high instead of obscenely high.
We’ve been working on some new metrics to measure our Kingdom impact. A few interesting numbers to report: to date, we have recaptured 52,028 sq. ft. of space in our churches that was previously unusable. Church occupancy, on average, increased from 41% pre-Narthex to 98% after we acquired it. Sanctuary utilization on Sunday mornings has increased from 41% at acquisition to 98% today. Progress!
As always, we’re glad to be on this journey with you.
Spiritual impact
I was honored to speak at this year's annual PastorServe breakfast. This gathering of more than 300 pastors from the Kansas City area is the perfect audience for the Narthex message. I am consistently pleased by the number of pastors who say they have heard of us. We don't do any active marketing; our message is spread through word of mouth, often over cups of coffee. As our reputation grows, we are receiving inquiries from churches not only in Kansas City, but throughout the country, about the services that Narthex can offer.
