A message from your Senior Warden
Hebrews 12: 2: “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
Friends,
In September 2022, the parishioners of St Andrew’s made generous commitments to the Renewing the Gift Capital Campaign to care for our historic building, create spiritual and physical access for all who worship with us, and provide for our future.
Thank you for your participation! We are getting closer to realizing a more energy efficient church, a more accessible space for our worshipers, and a more accessible and welcoming entrance.
The realization of these projects has been accomplished by the full body of Christ here at St. Andrew’s: the Vestry called on many of you to participate on committees to make recommendations regarding the details and actual costs of each project. That careful and often time-consuming work has made it possible for the Vestry to make responsible decisions about the expenditure of campaign funds.
When I last communicated with you in 2024 about the campaign, we had already completed a number of projects: a new church sign; renovated stained glass windows, and energy efficient building insulation. Since that time, we have completed three other projects: solar panels, a campaign tithe, and nave renovation. Here is an update on those projects.
Installation of solar panels will provide us with clean energy for decades to come, add funds to our yearly budget for ministry, and act as a witness to the community that we at St. Andrew’s take seriously our baptismal promise to be faithful stewards of the Earth. After reinforcement of our early 19th century nave roof, solar panels were installed in March 2025, and they are at work! St. Andrew’s electric bill for June 2025 was down to -$248.53 (that’s negative $248.53), down from previous monthly bills of over $400.00!
2025 also saw us complete our campaign tithe process. After careful vetting, our Vestry awarded a total of $72,000 to six local non-profit organizations that are doing the work of Christ in our communities, and whose missions align with ours. They are: The Diocese of New Hampshire Capital Campaign; Merrimack Valley Daycare; Crisis Center of New Hampshire; The Community Action Program of Belknap and Merrimack Counties; The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness; and Waypoint. To share their mission with us and to deepen the relationship between these organizations and our parish, we received visits from each of these organizations over the course of 2024 and early 2025. Please keep those organizations in your prayers as they do Christ’s work with your dollars.
The Altar Space, Accessibility, and Redesign Committee completed its work with a spectacular realization of a more accessible altar area in April, 2025. Though we had not originally included the communion kneelers as part of the original capital campaign, these were added to the campaign by the Vestry; a beautiful, useful, historic restoration has been accomplished.
Our ongoing projects include:
The Front Landscape and Accessibility Committee has made progress toward realizing a more welcoming, accessible, and aesthetically pleasing entry to our church. To accomplish this, they have had to obtain an updated property survey, which was finally completed in May, 2025; they also engaged in conversations with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation regarding right of way issues in front of our church. They have made tremendous progress with these community and state issues. In parallel, for more than two years they have researched and discussed aesthetic design for all-ability access. The NH Department of Transportation reconfiguration of the intersection and Main Street in front of St. Andrew’s is not scheduled to begin until July of this year, at the earliest. We therefore anticipate the first phase of our project to start in 2026.
Our replacement organ, selected in 2021, has been secured by deposit. The instrument that has been serving us in worship for 150 years was removed in February 2025. The renovated replacement instrument will be installed, likely later this year.
We are repaying the 10-year low-interest loan that we took with the Diocese of New Hampshire for the repair of our nave ceiling. As of June 2025, the balance of the original $100,000 loan is $60,913.73.
Finally, we plan to put funds toward a building endowment as a way of providing for our building’s future maintenance and repair. The ultimate size of this fund will depend on the cost of the to-be-completed projects.
A word about finances: campaign project cost estimates were made in 2021 and 2022. It should not be a surprise that the actual cost of many of the projects was greater than originally anticipated, including the solar panels and the nave renovation. Fortunately, your commitments to the Campaign exceed the goal.
However, a realistic cost estimate of the Front Landscape and Accessibility project — in 2025–26 dollars – has yet to be finalized. Of the $50,000 allotted in the original campaign to this project, approximately $16,740,00 has been spent not only on preliminary design but on critical projects not originally accounted for in the campaign, including: the boundary survey and the church signs. The cost of any final project which will realize our hopes for a more accessible and aesthetically pleasing final project will exceed the original $50,000 allotted. Though the campaign raised more commitments than originally asked for, financing for this project will be tight, and the work may have to be accomplished in stages.
To those who have made commitments to the campaign, your ongoing support and fulfillment of these is greatly appreciated. You will soon receive an email from St. Andrew’s on the status of your commitment to the campaign.
To those of you who have completed your commitment to the campaign, thank you! If the Holy Spirit is moving you to extend your commitment by one or more years, we would be eager to come and have a conversation with you. Please feel free to contact me.
For those who are new to the church since the start of our campaign in 2022, or for those who chose not to participate at that time, we welcome you, if you feel the urging of the Spirit, to contribute to the campaign. I hope you will reach out to me if you have questions.
I have been a parishioner here for some 30 years. Over the past several years I feel in my sisters and brothers a deepening commitment to what it means to be a Christian disciple in the 21st century. And how exciting that we see new faces taking leadership roles. Perhaps this is an outward manifestation of “God enlarging our hearts.”
Psalm 119:32: “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!”
Our Capital Campaign will be a success if we continue to allow God’s spirit to enlarge our hearts. We have a beautiful, renewed facility. Do we have the endurance to discern how the Holy Spirit wants us to continue to fill St. Andrew’s with his love and action? That is the next challenge.
It has been an honor to work on these projects with you.
Fred Briccetti. Senior Warden
