We have been engaged in ministry in the heart of Boise for 142 years. It all starts on the foundations of our beautiful building. Our building is really four building that have been molded together. Each has its own character...and its own roof. Roofing concerns have been present in this place for at least the last ten years. For that reason, when we started our Capital Campaign—The NEXT Step—in 2017 we ensured that that the roof did not need to be a part of the campaign. We heard what roofers had been telling us: it’s good for another hundred years.

It turns out that they were wrong. When we renovated the Sanctuary, we peeled back the walls and realized that there were more water issues than we were aware of beforehand. It was then that we knew we had to get a more expert opinion about our roof. And so we did: this March we had a slate-roof expert fly in from Illinois. He had bad news for us. We need a whole new roofing system. It is not about the shingles, which re in good shape. It is that the brick around the roof, the coping stones on top of the roof line, and all the metalwork in the valleys and the edges had worn out and needed replacing. And the rub is this: our slate in’t actually slate. It is a cement asbestos tile. And we cannot fix the brick and metalwork without removing the whole roof.

We hoped for magical solutions and easy fixes, but they are a distraction. The fact of the matter is that all three major buildings have aging and problematic roofs, and we need to address them before the water-intrusion issues destroy all that we have worked to maintain and improve over the last hundred years. We believe we can wait on Lindsay Hall; we will not replace that roof at this time. We already rebuilt the flat roof. But Sanctuary and Education Building roofs cannot wait and need to be done in 2021. They are getting worse by the season, and soon that will be an active threat to all that they shelter beneath them.

We have invested in this building and done great work to make it a wonderful ministry resource. Now we must protect that resource. This congregation has met many challenges over the years. We have proved faithful, resilient, and resourceful. We find ourselves standing at a precipice. The path before us is precarious. and it would be easy to be paralyzed by fear and ask over and again, “how can we possibly do this?” We will do this: by the Grace of God and the gratitude of this congregation, who take pride in knowing that we are an engaged community in downtown Boise, have been for generations, and will be for generations yet to come. One never chooses adversity; one gets chosen by it. Let us take the example of Charles and Lorraine Childers; let us follow in the footsteps of the generations who came before us and ensured that this place would be here to nurture us in faith. Let us, by the Grace of God, overcome this challenge in ways that surpass our wildest dreams.

Join us in in this campaign to ensure shelter and nurture under this roof for another hundred years!

Grace and Peace,

The Sheltered in Faith Campaign Team
John Hicks and Monica Kinney, co-chairs
Bob Paris, Forrest Hunter,

Marilyn Fordham, Mathew Eardley, and Andrew Kukla