It's time to rebuild!

That's the cry that went out today from our satellite worship center...(a.k.a. - borrowed church). Though we had lots of our church family away for the 4th of July weekend that didn't stop us from having a great worship service. It was awesome! God is building us, refining us, purging us, preparing us, guiding us and urging us to attempt great things for Him. And we will...with His help, provision and power!

Our 4th service away from our home campus is so much better than that 1st one. That 1st service was pretty rough, many glitches that occurred, power outage blew the sound amplifier, plus we were all pretty much still in a state of shock from the Flood of '08 that moved us out of our regional worship center. Today, we moved around with greater ease, our people are getting more used to the different service time and the freedom is more enjoyable. God is good...all the time!

We were able to incorporate many additions to our worship service today:

• The ladies trio sang a patriotic song to open the service!
• Rosalinda sang a beautiful song for our communion service!
• We celebrated the life of Christ through communion!
  
• Pastor Joel prepared a picture video with music for our offertory of the recent scenes from the flood. He entitled it from "Hurt to Hope!"
• We received a fantastic offering complete with contributions to our newly established FLOOD FUND! Thanks Lord for meeting our daily needs! You are Jehovah Jireh!
  
• I prepared a powerpoint presentation complete with recent pictures that complimented my message today. Glad to have Trenton back in action in the sound booth by assisting me with the slide show.
• I introduced Monty & Susan and they had the opportunity to meet part of our church family and greet them warmly!
• We had some friends of ours, Jeff & Sara Alexander from Ohio, who are soon moving to Indiana to take on the new Indiana Chi Alpha Director's position. Welcome friends!
• I preached a message from the Book of Nehemiah that spoke about where we are at as a fellowship: IT'S TIME TO REBUILD!!
  

That's right...tomorrow we begin the rebuilding stage. We've chosen a general contractor. We've laid out our primary ministry needs and plans to the architect. We'll be making many upgrades and excellent changes to our aged buildings and empty basement. Two of these buildings were built in the 50's and 60's, so now is the time to bring them up to code and make necessary improvements and functional changes that will help us better minister to our church and community! You won't recognize the former CFA facilities...it will be completely new and improved! Thanks Lord for your direction and guidance in all that you've revealed thus far. We continue to focus our eyes upon you!

We went to Sirloin Stockade for lunch today with our congregation. We're being featured as the "Church of the Month" so we were able to take up one whole section and enjoy fellowship with each other (the pics above are from this lunch gathering!). It was a great time. Each week we will convene here and build relationships during this amazing faith journey!

The HOPE OUTREACH takes place tomorrow. We are giving away tons of awesome supplies and goods to those that have been affected by THE FLOOD OF '08. We will pray with them. We will share God's HOPE with them. We will bless them in the name of the Lord. Gotta meet with Monty and Susan early to receive our instructions @ 8 am. Pray for us as we continue to touch our community with HOPE.

We took a bike ride to complete our day and enjoyed a trip to the church and back from our home. As we traveled the city bike path from 25th Street to the church, past the wounded hospital and scarred golf course, we discovered tremendous damage that this flood caused to our regular scenic trail. Part of the trail had slid into the creek along with it some trees and lots of soil.

We will rebuild and we will have a GRAND RE-OPENING DEDICATION CELEBRATION! Not sure when it will be but I'm already working on it...it's gonna be awesome all for the glory of God. Everyone is going to see what God has done here @ CFA.

How can you help? Pray and donate with me for this goal. I made it public today in my message. I went out on a cliff. I declared it to my church and they now will be joining me in prayer as well. What is it? I am convinced that God wants us to rebuild DEBT-FREE without incurring any more debt onto our current church mortgage. Will we see it happen? YES...YES...YES! With God all things are possible. I've preached it, prayed it and proclaimed it...now it's time to live it out...in complete faith. I'm ready to see a live miracle lived out before us on this amazing faith race back to 10th and Iowa Streets.

You can donate on our church website: www.columbusfirstassembly.org

Already we've witnessed gifts given by individuals and churches from across the country.

Hope you will stay along for the ride. It's going to be one of the most spectacular things that I will have ever witnessed in my 25 plus years in pastoral ministry. Guaranteed...without a doubt!

Don't forget to leave us your encouragement placed in a comment at the end of this blog post.

Love to hear from you!

Traveling BEYOND ALL LIMITS for the glory of our Great God!