Excitement at Church

We have an exciting day at our church today.  This is the day we move into our new sanctuary.  This project has been several years in the works with thousands or tens of thousands of hours of hard work to get it to where it is.  The Lord has been good to the church through out this project.  No major injuries, no church splits, etc.  There has been pretty significant unity in the church during the entire project.

I think the greatest thing about this entire project is that it has forced us to become an “outward facing” church again.  Meaning, many times in the life of a church it is easy to get totally focused on programs for those inside the church.  Well during this building project I have noticed a complete transformation in the awareness of this problem and a willingness to address it head on.  Frankly, the church is a much warmer church now.  We seem to care and love each other much more but we also care for the new people that God sends our way and we are much more willing to go out inviting people from our neighborhoods around the church etc.

So this morning our pastor wants to celebrate like David celebrated when he was bringing the Ark of the Lord back to Jerusalem.  Hopefully our pastor will keep his close on.  (Inside Bible joke, you will have to go read your Bible if you don’t get it 2 Samuel 6 ).  Our pastor also wants to have a celebration of the new sanctuary like Solomon had when he had finished building the temple.  I hope this on only meant in symbolic terms.  We currently do not have the wealth of an entire nation to put on this party but, with the Lord anything is possible.  We will have trumpets playing and a choir singing and a procession from the old sanctuary to the new one.  Dignitaries from the community have been invited and it appears that the place will be packed. 

All in all, it should be a huge celebration and all the praise and glory goes to the Lord.  Thank you Lord for you faithfulness.

We know that this is the time when the real work begins in the life of the church.  We are hoping and praying that the Lord sends many baby Christians to our church and it will be our job to do the work of discipleship.  This work is much more meaningful than a building project and sometimes it can be more difficult.  I pray that hearts and minds are tweaked in the Church to be ready for this work, and I pray that many are willing to go “out into the harvest fields”