Burn, baby, burn

Next month (February 2006) Grace Church will make its final mortgage payment. This is truly amazing when you consider the size and make-up of the church when this 2.8 million dollar loan was taken. Here is what Business Manager, Andrew Norton, wrote about this step of faith in his blog (http://admingrace.blogspot.com/) recently:

“Funding is a key component of any project, but Grace’s dream was so large that most financial institutions considered it too great a liability for them to absorb for the church. Even the Grace Brethren Fellowship’s financial organization, designed to assist churches expand, wasn’t willing to absorb the total cost of the project. Only one financial institution had confidence to offer Grace the full $2.8 million loan.”

But when it was all said and done, God will have allowed our church to complete this task without ever missing one payment. Praise His name! As a result, we have set aside Sunday morning, April 23rd (the Sunday following Easter) to celebrate this momentous occasion of God’s faithfulness with a mortgage burning as part of our morning services. I have personally invited Dr. Young and Loreen to join us on that special morning. Dr. Young is the one who led the church into this step of faith and I think it would only be fitting and honoring to have him say a few words as part of that morning’s celebration and to be the one who actually burns the mortgage on that morning. Dr. Young and Loreen have graciously agreed to make the time to be here at Grace Church that Sunday.

This special morning will not be about an ending. This accomplishment is not an end. Why does God prove Himself faithful to us? So that we will have even greater faith and confidence to trust Him in the future and step out in greater ways of faith as He leads us through His Word and through His Spirit. This special mortgage burning will not be focusing on the past…it will be focusing on the future.

What is the next step of faith God wants us to take? That is still being determined. As you know, we have been able to purchase the 12.5 acres of land across the street. In the very near future I will be putting together a “Concept Development Team.” Their job will be to take all of the information we have already gathered from surveys of the staff; vision meetings with ministry leaders; the findings of our diligence committee; and the findings of our research committee and to look 20 years into the future and give us an idea of the facility we are going to need to meet the ministries of not only today but also the ministries that God will bring us in the future. At that point we will be able to take a step back into reality and put together the steps that we must take together.

What will it look like? What will it include? What will be new? How will the present facility be changed? These are all questions that cannot be answered right now but we will have the thrill together of answering them in the future. Let us stay as committed as ever as a church to being unified as a Body of Christ and in bathing our church ministry, the present and the future, in consistent, regular, fervent prayer before our Lord.