Charting the Future: Worship Center Campaign
As all eyes in the Kingdom turn to colleges these days in hopes of revival, God reminds us of the crucial role of sacred spaces.
It’s time—long past time—to renovate the Butterfield Chapel and transform it into a more fully functioning Worship Center. Inside will be the Thomas Westbrook Global Prayer Center, a space that confirms our commitment to a continued culture of prayer at Northwest University. Our chapel has served us well for 60 years, and thousands of lives have been changed there. Given the wear and tear it has suffered, some people urged us to tear it down, but we believe it is an important link to a past we never want to forget: the days when Northwest College was a single-purpose institution focused on training ministers for the Church and its mission.
We still serve that single purpose of training Kingdom workers, but we do it now in all the ways our founders envisioned in our 1949 charter. President Charles Butterfield, who built our Kirkland campus and the chapel that bears his name, imagined the training of gospel servants who would serve the Church and the world in many fields beyond the pulpit, and we have richly fulfilled his vision. But if those servants lose their focus on Jesus, their grounding in the Scriptures, and their dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, we will have truly lost our way.
We have big, ambitious plans to develop our campus in the future, but we believe that the renovation and restoration and optimization of our chapel must take the top priority as we start building and rebuilding our facilities.
You may have seen our new tagline: “Jesus First, Jesus Always.” Jesus will always remain our True North, our Guiding Star. Renewing the chapel first offers us a way to declare it again, that Jesus remains our top priority. I hope you’ll watch this video to get more details on how you can help us.