Within Your Gates grantee: Brian Hoselton (Church hall rebuild)

Within Your Gates is our program aimed at inspiring good works by providing grants for service projects led by members of the Church of God. Whether you’re a member or a minister, we encourage projects benefiting Church brethren or the local community.

Our most recent Within Your Gates grantee is Brian Hoselton of the United Church of God in Missouri. The local congregation meets in the office building he works at and owns, however, a recent fire destroyed the building and the congregation is seeking to rebuild.

More from Brian’s GoFundMe:

Hi, my name is Brian and we lost our church meeting hall to a fire on April 29, 2024. It was part of the office building that I worked out of and owned.

We have been meeting in the hall for the last 14 years and have become a very close-knit group over those years. We’ve eaten many meals together, helped each other through problems, and felt the power of God in our lives there. Many of our children grew up there. It was just a perfect building for our wheelchair-bound members.

We recently purchased all new chairs, sound equipment, and cameras. We were filming the services and sharing them on our YouTube page for others to be inspired by the sermons that were given every week. Now we are in a temporary location. We’re happy that everyone is safe — but we are heartbroken over the devastation.

We want to rebuild our church hall here on this property that will stand as a lasting legacy that the enemy will not win and God will prevail. We want to show our children that we will not be defeated and will rise again with God’s help. Our spirits have been buoyed by the outreach of so many, and that has given us the confidence that each day will get better. But we have a long road ahead of us, and a lot of work to do.

The amount of insurance will not replace the building that we lost. After the mortgage is paid off, there won’t be much left over, and I can only put a portion toward rebuilding. A rebuild for the building will run between 200-300k to help house our congregation. It is yet to be decided if I will add a section for me to continue working.

This is not a church-owned building, but all the funds will be used to rebuild a building where the United Church of God in Fulton can meet together again. We will keep you updated with the progress along the way, but it will obviously take some time to get things sorted out in the aftermath of the fire and months before we can start a rebuild. The amount of money available will also determine what we are able to accomplish.

Thank you for any amount you can assist us with. Please share our story with others as well. You are a blessing to us all. We hope our messages of the Gospel will bless you as well.

Thank you to all who have already given, but more fundraising still needs to be done! If you too would like to give to this effort, click here to contribute to the congregation’s GoFundMe page.

If you, or brethren you know, are interested in organizing a service project but need help, check out our Within Your Gates program.