Versailles Baptist Church is a mission-minded church located 25 minutes outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Currently, they are conducting two Sunday services with an average weekend attendance of 535. Despite their best efforts to pay down the debt there had been little progress in getting out from underneath. Pastor Cabell recalls, “For many years our church wrestled with our building debt. We recognized that we would not be able to conquer this on our own and reached out to Impact to help.” When they called Impact Stewardship, they had not done a capital campaign since 2003 and wanted to be freed from the burden of debt once and for all.
An ambitious goal of $1.2 million on a debt of $1.7 million was set to free up significant dollars for ministry that are currently going to interest payments. Pastor Caball explains, “Impact Stewardship provided the framework, resources, and wisdom to help us create a wonderful stewardship campaign. We could not be more pleased with the results. The campaign brought our church together and reinvigorated our members. Our pledges far exceeded our goal and we have already received 50% of them in the first 9 months following the campaign”. Through Impact Stewardship’s guidance the people of Versailles Baptist Church raised over $1.9 million, exceeding more than their initial ambitious goal. Diane Baker, Financial Secretary, was excited to announce, “It took 46 months to reduce the debt from $2 million to $1,650,537, and only three months of the campaign to cut it to $978,526!” Even though paying off the debt through a capital campaign seemed counter-intuitive, the church leadership is excited to share additional ministry opportunities that will now occur because of everyone’s generosity.
