Hey Element Church! This blog has been stirring in my mind and on my blog idea list, literally for months now. The question of “Should we have a building or not?” has/was/is heavy upon my heart. I think it is a legitimate question for any church plant. Especially one like Element which is still so new (10 months old). The fact that we were even considering the option of having our own building is amazing seeing that we were only 6 months old when the opportunity arose. Here are some things I think any church should ask when faced with the issue of getting a building or not.
1. What is God saying? To be honest, we weren’t necessarily looking for building when the Carlson building was presented. We knew we were out of space and something needed to be done. We took a peak at 2 other permanent locations here in town and if we would have pursued those, it would have been us forcing God’s hand. With our new location, at least to us on the Lead Team, it sure felt like it was a God thing. How do you know if it’s a God thing?
A. Timing: The owner of the building called us and said he heard we needed space and had some he thought might work for us. That same week at our Egg Drop a local Christian contractor said “If you ever need to remodel or build something let me know and I’ll donate my time as your general contractor”. Not one year earlier 6 of us layed hands on that same building and prayed for God to give it to us. Our third service (e:coustic) wasn’t working as a space reliever.
B. Scripture: God reveals His will to us through Scripture. On March 11th, the week this opportunity arose, I read this passage in my devotions. Zechariah 8. Here some specific verses that felt were confirming from God. 8:6-8 Bring them home? That is the exact phrase from Isaiah 43:18-19 when God confirmed my call to come to Cheyenne. V. 9 says “Be strong and finish the task” V. 13 b says “Be strong, and get on with rebuilding the Temple!” The whole chapter screamed to me “THIS IS MY WILL!”
C. Prayer and Fasting: We prayed and fasted about this decision and all of us had a clear spirit that this is what God wanted. If you make a decision of this magnitude without serious prayer and fasting you are in for a HUGE mistake.
D. Are you scared? This decision scared the daylights out of me. God rarely calls us, if EVER, to something we can do on our own strength. This was a HUGE financial leap for us. We have a GREAT deal at the theater (which is another blog for another day about God’s provision). We were planning on bringing Grant on staff, and absolutely needed to. We have budget items like our outreach events that we are unwilling to NOT do. So making this step was a major leap of faith for our church. To me, it was a move that if God didn’t provide we were done for. It was an “advance in spite of the setting” move for us.
E. How do you feel? Even though we were scared, our spirits said it was ok. We can’t always trust JUST our spirit but I know, even before we launched, we walked into possible meeting places and our spirits immediately said “NO”. When we walked into this building, speaking for staff here, but I believe all of our spirits said “This is home!” When all those other things and our spirits agree, I think it’s a good sign.
I have a couple other thoughts on this so we’ll make this installment #1.
Following Christ,
Jeff
