Connect @ Grace

A friend of mine sold their house last week. I could see the mix of excitement and fear in his face as he relayed the news. I could sense the relief of having a difficult task completed and the anxiety of stepping into a new transitional phase of life. Change is like that; exciting and fearful.

Two weeks ago the congregation finalized plans for a new building. It’s hard to put into words how I felt about that. We’ve been struggling with facility issues and challenges from the very start of Grace Fellowship. And that’s probably been a good thing. It’s always been about the church not about the building. And our facility issues helped us keep that focus. We’ve never had the “blessing” of a beautifully designed structure with all the bells and whistles and enough space for all our ministries. Quite the contrary, we’ve always had the challenge of doing church with whatever and wherever we could find to make it work. And I tend to believe that this challenge has built within us an attitude of flexibility and cooperation we wouldn’t have otherwise.

But now, now that we’ve decided, now that we’ve reached the point of no return, this mix of excitement and fear is taking on a whole other dimension.
I told the congregation that this is no time to give in to fear. With the economy on a serious downturn, jobs being lost, people losing their homes there’s lots to be skittish about. But not with God. He’s been with us every step of the journey. He’s done far more than what we could have asked for or imagined. He’s been faithful time and time again. I have no doubt that God will build His church in His time. I have no idea what that’s going to look like in the next eighteen months and beyond but I know that Grace Fellowship is up to the task. We know what it’s like to move around and readjust; we’re good at creatively controlled chaos. That’s one of the reasons why I love this church.
Because they’ve never let a building get in the way of loving God and loving others. I don’t anticipate that ever changing.

But as for the building; I’m way pumped. It will not be the answer to our ministry challenges and it certainly will not be the key to our ministry success. But it will be nice to see our kids worshipping across the hall from their parents. It will be awesome to witness the baptism of believers in our own service. And when I leave something in my office I’ll just walk across the hall instead of driving across town to get it.

Pastor Tim

Yes, given the choice between doing something “big and important” or doing something “small and insignificant,” I’ll pick big every time. I run long distances and have completed 2 marathons because it is such a big (and must therefore be important) thing to do. I went to college in my thirties and earned a degree because it was a big thing for a wife and mother of two small children to pull off. I adopted 3 children from Russia just 25 months ago. Part of the attraction to that adventure was that it was, you guessed it, overwhelmingly big. I’m not from Texas, but I have totally bought into the myth that big is better and that big is synonymous with important. Have you ever heard someone put the words “big and insignificant” or “small and important” together?

God has been. He’s had to because I was on the fast track to a huge spiritual crash and burn.

Before the adoption, I had huge amounts of time, energy, resources to do big and important things in regards to my personal devotion time and development of spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, meditation, even fasting. I had anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes in the morning to read and pray, I spent 5 to 8 hours every Friday to do in depth Bible study, journaling, fasting, meditating. Seriously, that was every week. Plus I went away for a week or so in the summer to receive intensive Bible study instruction. Wimpy little 15 minute daily devotional books were small and insignificant – not worth the paper they were printed on as far as I was concerned. If I wasn’t doing big things in regards to spending time with God then it wasn’t worth doing. Since the adoption, I have no resources to invest in my spiritual devotional time with God. Any “alone and quiet” moments happen in the bathroom if at all.

God has basically had to say to me, “Stop despising the small things.” The 15 second prayer rattled off while sitting on the toilet reaches the Throne of Grace just as well as the prayers birthed out of 45 minutes of Bible study. The song of worship hummed while cooking dinner is just as much worship as the song sung from a large auditorium at a “big and important” church conference.

The truth is I was trusting in my own efforts and not trusting in God’s ability to “complete the work He started” in me. I’m learning that God is more than big enough to grow this small, little me up into the image of His Son.

Jesus Is Life!
Holly