Dear Friends,

This GoFundMe was first created in the days after the April 2023 arson and fire. Over 600 people responded with extraordinary generosity, giving roughly $100,000 when we did not yet know what the future would hold.

Three years later, we do. We are rebuilding.

To mark this milestone and invite you into our journey, we have created a short documentary. This film tells the story of what remained, the challenges we encountered, how Faith carried on, and how we began to imagine what could come next.

We are grateful to share it with you.

Setting a Goal

We have set a $1 million goal for this GoFundMe.

It is not a comfortable number to ask for, but rebuilding a church in Cambridge is not a small undertaking. Our proposed building is designed to be compact and flexible. At 5,500 square feet, it will be 40% smaller than the church we lost. We have let our mission—Welcome, Nourish, Send—guide the design by asking what is essential, what will enable our congregation to serve, which spaces can support multiple uses, how Faith Kitchen can make its way home, and what we want to leave for the generations that follow.

We hope this will be a building that lasts more than 100 years: sustainable, healthy, useful, and full of spirit.

Even at this smaller scale, construction in Cambridge is approaching $1,000 per square foot. With design, permitting, engineering, and other project costs, rebuilding this vision will require an investment of nearly $6 million.

We are not starting from zero.

After paying $600,000 for demolition, nearly $3 million remains from our insurance coverage and your early donations. Our congregation has also launched its own Forward in Faith campaign, with a goal of raising another $1 million among our members, with $750,000 already committed. We continue to pursue grants, memorial gifts, donated materials, short-term financing, and utility incentives for the project.

We have already secured or committed more than 60% of what we need to rebuild, but there is still a considerable gap to close.

Years ago, Pastor Tim Stein preached about prayer this way: “Do not try to be God’s gatekeeper of worthy prayers.” Ask for what you want. Pray for what you long for.

So we are asking.

We do not know exactly how we will get there yet. That part feels familiar. This post-fire journey has been filled with uncertainty, but also with hope.

What we do know is what we are working toward: a new home for Faith, built to serve this congregation and this community for generations to come.

We invite you to be part of it. Give what you can. Tell someone what happened here. Share this film with someone who might see in this little church something worth carrying forward.

None of us can rebuild Faith alone. But each of us can do something.

With gratitude and hope,

Your friends at Faith Lutheran Church

Faith Lutheran Church is a congregation of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a non-profit organization. You can also give on our website or by mail: https://www.faithcambridge.org/giving