A New Way to Begin at Genesis

by the Rev. Dr. Patrick Duggan

This post first appeared in the blog, Vital Statistics, of the Center for Analytics, Research and Data (CARD) of the United Church of Christ

This past August, the UCC Church Building & Loan Fund (CB&LF) did something that, to our knowledge, had never been done in the Fund’s 166-year history. The respective boards of the Church Building & Loan Fund and the UCC Cornerstone Fund voted to approve joint financing of a $3.6 million loan to Genesis Worship Center, a nondenominational church located in Oakland, California.

So, what is new about a loan approval at CB&LF after financing over 4000 church projects?

Was it the size of the loan or that it was a participation loan between the two United Church of Christ church loan funds?  No, neither of these were new nor unusual. Perhaps it was the fact that the loan was made to a church that is not a part of the United Church of Christ? No, CB&LF has always included, as a part of its mission, offering its products and services to all Christian churches regardless of denominational affiliation or lack thereof.

What was precedent-setting for the loan to Genesis Worship Center is that it was the first CB&LF loan to be used to transform an existing church fellowship hall into an affordable housing project. When construction is completed in the next 18-24 months, a building that had been used for Sunday fellowship hour, church meetings, wedding receptions, and birthday parties will be transformed into twelve brand new affordable apartments for low- and moderate-income families from the Bay Area.

It is not lost on this author that CB&LF’s first loan for a major repurposing project on church property, an affordable housing development, is for a church named “Genesis”. In addition to the name, however, there are several elements to this project that signaled to us that the Holy Spirit was affirming CB&LF’s renewed strategic vision to transform communities by helping the Church live into God’s economy.

Firstly, over 28,000 people are homeless in the Bay Area of California, the third-largest homeless population in the country. The region has the second-largest percentage of homeless people in the U.S. without temporary shelter: 67%.  San Francisco recently reported 1,794 people living in cars, a 45% increase since 2017. Drive around any of the 101 cities in the nine Bay Area counties, and you will see families living in cars, in tent cities, on medians, dead-end streets, at railyards, under bridges and overpasses, in parks, and on downtown streets. Over 10% of the Bay Area homeless hold jobs, and some are college students.  A recent study reported that in the state of California, 19% of the state’s 2.1 million college students, over 400,000 people, have experienced homelessness in the past year. Some 60% of these students are housing insecure; half have experienced hunger.

The statistics affirm the biblical imperative for God’s people to act on behalf of the homeless and housing insecure. Bay Area congregations on their own and through organizations like the Interfaith Council of Alameda County (ICAC) have answered the call, working with local officials to offer immediate and short-term aid while developing long term solutions. It was partially through the efforts of ICAC member Pastor Laurie Manning of Skyline United Church of Christ that CB&LF was invited to present to the ICAC this past April to talk about the financing, consulting and transformational services CB&LF could bring to bear to meet this dire need.

Another sign of God’s hand was that CB&LF was sought out as a source of financing by New Way Homes, the developer for Genesis. New Way’s founder, a retired tech entrepreneur, formed the enterprise because he was moved by the urgency of the Bay Area housing crisis. New Way specializes in affordable housing development on urban church properties in the Bay Area. This talented boutique development firm understood that CB&LF offers low cost, flexible financing exclusively to churches and church organizations. They appreciated CB&LF’s mission and strategic vision to deploy its wealth toward ending poverty in America. They were amazed by CB&LF’s experience in helping churches to align the use of their real estate assets with ministry goals and community needs.

Thirdly, the timeframe from initial contact with Genesis to loan approval for the project was by comparison, extremely short.   Typically, churches are very slow to act on major building projects. For example, CB&LF will train or otherwise assist over 700 church leaders this year. Of that number, less than 5% of those leaders will influence their respective congregations to initiate a building project within the first 12 months after contact. Most congregations take two to three years to move from a decision to the start of a building project.

Genesis Pastor George Matthews, a gifted church leader who holds both MDiv and MBA degrees, was apparently among the 5% mentioned above. We visited Pastor Matthews and walked the Genesis Worship Center site in April 2019.  He worked with New Way Homes to submit a very strong loan application a few weeks later, and after review and underwriting by the Cornerstone Fund, the Genesis Worship Center loan application was approved by the CB&LF Board of Directors on July 26, 2019.

Genesis… New Way… If this was a tale and not a true account of a new thing at CB&LF, you could not come up with better names!