Nearly two weeks ago the church staff decided that September 10th wouldn’t just be the day we went to two services, started KidsTown (Including building KidsTown) and really moved forward with our vision… we decided this was going to be the day that we wrapped up our Phase One building project as much as possible.
The last 12 days were spent painting, finishing drywall, ripping out old carpet, installing new lighting, finalizing the Resource Center, pushing the elevator inspections, pushing the final 3-4 contratrators to complete the exterior and basically getting the foyer to the point where we can say… it’s 99% completed.
The changes to the look of the church have been dramatic over the past 12-14 months. Before, the building was antiquated. It was a nice place to worship, it had a good feel to it, but everything about the building was 20-30 years old. It’s been a collasal amount of work (Barely any on my part, mostly on the shoulders of George Fisher and an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition style crew of volunteers) to remodel the offices, then the sanctuary, then the foyer, while contrators tore the face of the building off, added an elevator, all new windows, an new entrance, and a new face to the exterior. 
In the meantime, all of the "new stuff" has been finalized as well. Light Force led the way Wednesday night as it became the first arm of the church to implement the changes. KidsTown is next… it launches this Sunday with a whole team of very excited volunteers.
Not forgetting about God. Yeah, while these last few weeks have been stressful… they are also quite peaceful. I don’t know any other way to describe how I feel about this in my walk with the Lord. I know that I am doing the absolute best I know how. As I hang out in Acts and 1 & 2 Peter in my devotions I clearly see God’s fingerprints everywhere I turn with the work being done. I long for people to join us in experiencing freedom and forgiveness of the past through Christ. I long for this to happen:
They [false teachers of the world] promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If
they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they
are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 2 Peter 2:19-20
I think that the King James actually captures this passage best. [See the link above for KJV] I know there are many in our community (in the church and out of it) who have given themselves to one bondage or another. They desire liberty but are put into bondage. Oh, that we would continually teach that Jesus brings liberty into lives given through birth and bad decision to sin! It kills me to see so many people flee Christ because they see bondage or judgement or religion’s rules and much, much more. They have an incorrect view of the cross!
As we say in Light Force… people think they are alive, they think they are healthy… but without being "infected" with Christ, they are really dead. They need to die to themselves by getting infected with Jesus in order to truly live the best life God has for them.
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