We quickly got our things together, stopped off at a Starbucks on the way and made it just in time to get the last two seats available in their auditorium. Now I had heard a great deal about this church. I had heard that they had grown from 168 people in 2002 to over 5000 in 2007. Part of me wanted to know how they did it, and part of me was excited just to be able to hang out in a church and hide in the crowd where no one would expect anything from me.
We pulled up and were shocked to find a very traditional looking church building that looked like every other struggling church in America. The building itself appeared old and I wondered how they could pull it off.
We quickly took our seats and learned that they conducted 7 services over a weekend and 3 of them were done via video so as to save the Pastor from burnout. Clearly, there was something very powerful going on at this church and from what I could tell, the Pastor was trying to get people to leave more than he was trying to grow the congregation.
I couldn't put my finger on what was happening here, but then I realized that the Holy Spirit is like the wind (you can't really put your finger on it).
All together, it appeared that God had brought me to Vegas to bring me through Dallas on a snow delay, to get me to go to this church, to show me what could be done in a traditional building when the Holy Spirit is in it.
As our church looks at buying an old traditional church building, I began to hear God speaking to me once again about considering this building to grow our body. Before we were looking at a $2.8MM investment in a bigger building, but God clearly doesn't want us going into debt or being building poor. So He has presented us with an option to buy an old traditional building that was appraised at $1.3 MM but through various people, it has become clear that we may be able to buy the building for @ $500,000. Clearly, this is a lot more doable... gives us flexibility to add services, meet capacity, and watch the Holy Spirit work through us. I can't help but wonder what God is doing here, but there have been too many doors swinging open for this to be coincidence.
As we make our plans, God continues to guide our steps and we are blown away by what He is doing through us... gently, mercifully, gracefully taking us where we need to be.
