The Surge

A little over three weeks ago, we suddenly and unexpectedly found out that our church could begin meeting as a congregation in our new worship center. We have been working on this project almost daily for 33 months now, so you can imagine our excitement.

The very next day, we received word from our municipality that the auditorium we have rented for the last 4.5 years was going to be renovated beginning July 1st and we would have to leave. Not only was that a surprise, but it only gave us two weeks to prepare the congregation for the move.

Now, the building that we are seeking to acquire has been sitting vacant for the last four years and no renovations or care had been done to it. That meant that we had to get it ready for our congregation to meet in by July 17th — 21 days after the transition.

So, the race was on. We painted, demolished, constructed, trimmed, cleaned, bought supplies, cleaned, prayed, cleaned, and decorated the entire center over the past three weeks. Did we mention having to clean the thing? We took out 6 truck loads of old materials and demolished walls to the dump. And, we think we have another few loads to go. It was a monumental task. Every day was an average of 13 hours work. On Saturday, we logged a 17.5 hour work-day, got home at 2 a.m., and arrived again early on Sunday to add the finishing touches.

Sunday was terrific! Everything turned out beautifully and the folks were so excited. For years, many folks have saved and given for what we saw as a reality last Sunday. It was also amazing to see how many of our folks just kept coming out to help and to give to the project. Their giving reminded me of the tabernacle in the Old Testament. God gave Moses the design for the tabernacle but not the materials. The materials had to come from the people in the form of “free-will offerings”. God required it this way so that the people would give to show how much they wanted God’s presence there among them.

We hope to have our first set of approvals from the city to renovate the building beginning in September. We’ll be going from the ground-up. Then, we will seek the next approval levels throughout the coming year.

Forgive our blog-absence due to the surge. However, I managed to upload a photo of one of our LifeTeams that met on July 10th. Most all of the folks in this picture helped us with many hours of work. So we give them an e-pplause.

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