MMI's Plans
For The New Headquarters Building
Now that we
have the new headquarters, you may be wondering, what we are going to do
with it. We are and will be using the building in three main ways: 1. the
international headquarters/office, 2. a multi-purpose training/meeting
facility, 3. a center for local outreach to Richmond.
Maritime
Ministries was born with a vision to be operating in a number of different
nations. This new building is
and will continue to become the central office for all outposts in other
countries. The offices are now up and running. For the first time we have
a single place for all of our files, computers, etc. Reuben and Debra
Smith, Roy Armstrong, and Andrew Fuller of World Horizons all have office
space on the second floor. We are already meeting daily for prayer,
discussion, meetings, and planning. We
now have a new "foothold" for moving forward organizationally.
The new offices provide such a profound sense of substantiality
that we believe we are now at the threshold of quantum progress.
The first floor
of the facility is divided into a main meeting room and shop area. These
will be used for training and meeting space. Already, we have been using
the main meeting room for MM's biweekly prayer meetings. Our plan is to
use this main space as a teaching facility for mission/discipleship
training schools run jointly with World Horizons. This school will
be a medium-term commitment of six months to a two-year period. The
school will combine classroom study with on-field practical ministry
application. We foresee the school being made up of
multi-national groups of high
school graduate or college-age students who desire to have an exposure to
and an involvement in world
missions without necessarily obligating themselves to a
career in missions. God
has already put in place the contacts with many potential teachers for
such a school that make up quite an impressive array of wisdom, knowledge,
talent, and experience. These teachers hail from a host of nations and a
variety of backgrounds such as: Dr. Cedric Chau, a Chinese pastor of a
church in Dublin, Ireland who has served as the Dean of Adminstration at
University College Dublin, Rex Worth, who is the retired Chief Engineer of
the OM ships Logos and Doulos, Tim Morris, who is international director
of World Horizons, and many
more. Maritime Ministries would offer a track in this curriculum for those
students who felt a calling to remote island and coastal areas and the use
of small ships in missions.
For those
students the classroom element would include practical classes on diesel
mechanics and other onboard systems.
The shop areas
of the building would be used for these classes. The meeting room will
also be used for seminars, special one-time classes, workshops, prayer and
worship events, and presentations.
The
headquarters' location is very strategic in the city of Richmond. The
Shockoe area is blossoming with new development and urban revival. There
are at least 6 large buildings which have been renovated as upscale
apartments in the immediate area. Hundreds of new residents are flooding
into the neighborhood, and these people are, for the most part, young
single or newly married professionals. There is very little happening in
the way of outreach to this area. Maritime Ministries and World Horizons
recognizes the tremendous opportunity we have with this new facility to be
in place and make an impact, as this section of the city is coming to
life. A local pastor will be holding a worship and Bible-study meeting on
Sunday evenings in this facility starting Sunday night July 22. His
ministry targets young urban dwellers especially artists, and the meetings
are designed to be strongly arts oriented. We have also met with another
local pastor with a ministry
that targets the specific
segment of society, "Generation X" which is predominately
populating this area. We have
discused the possibility of his ministry using our building to have an
impact on the community as well. With
the success of the Alpha program in Long Island, we have seen what a
powerful tool this program is for effective evangelism. The building
offers the perfect setting for this course, and we are planning this as
another way to use the building for local outreach.
