Four walls and a roof

This morning the kids woke up in my bed again. Last night after baths they got to spend some time with dad relaxing watching Hi-5 on Disney. They each have their own bedrooms, but at some point during the night they crawl into my bed and snuggle… now I am not complaining, it’s just hard to have three in a bed – especially when they both sleep across the bed and their feet kick you in your back and someone is haning off the bed! But I love them both.

Tonight I spent the evening with Jeff, he’s the Associate Pastor and Worship Leader at The Harvest Church; Jeff’s also my colleague at CIA, my life group leader and a good friend. Jeff is younger than me, but we have many interests and common traits that we balance each other out. Whenever I have a vision for a new marketing program or initiative for CIA, all I need to do is email my ideas to Jeff, and bang!… a few hours later I have my whole marketing strategy and initiative laid out ready for approval. I like working with Jeff!

Anyway, after work tonight, Jeff and I spent the night on the road driving around the Hi-Desert scouting new buildings for our church. This past weekend Pastor Don launched a new vision and purpose for our church – see the post – Stepping off the spring board. The church congregation was very supportive of the new direction, and we needed to build on this momentum, we can’t just let this excitement deflate and go back to the same old stuff.

So tonight we located 5 new buildings we would like to set up as our home base for church services. We currently use the SVL Community Center for church services on Sunday’s, but we need our own building to meet the needs of our congregation and continue to focus on our core values and cause – authentic worship, service, witness, fellowship & mentoring.

Christians know that the church is not just four walls and a roof, even though we worship in these buildings; the church is greater than a building, it is greater than one person - the church is the sum of all it’s parts. Sometimes church leaders get so caught up on the number of seats on pews and the pennies in the plate, but this is not the church that Jesus envisioned. We need to practice authentic worship, that’s what Sunday services are about; but we must also continue to live a ‘holy’ life – we can live a Christ-like life if we put God first.

I am excited about the potential our church has to be something great, something different, but greater. We spoke with a real estate agent about some of the properties available and look forward to finding the right building to continue our cause. Jeff gave me some resources for church launching and a couple of Pastor Don’s preaching series on DVD and Audio disks.

I also spoke with Bella tonight, the kids are at their mom’s house tonight and tomorrow, Ty was sleeping when I called the kids. It was nice to speak with Bella, I miss the kids when they are at their mom’s house. But they’ll be back on Friday. We have a play date with their friends on friday after school. Each time the kids leave the house, whether they are in school or at their mom’s house, I pray for their safe return home.

Tonight I spoke with a couple of friends, a few people have read yesterday’s post – Heart Dis-’ease’, and so they called to give me support and prayer for tomorrow’s legal meeting I have with the kids’ mom.  I have been praying about the current situation and I know God will be there with me tomorrow. He is a faithful God! If you trust in God, He’ll fight your battles for you.

Here is a scripture to reflect on tonight – “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” – Proverbs 17:7

Yesterday was a tough day for me… but I refuse to go backward. I am going forward with God. I’m going to be the person He wants me to be. I’m going to fulfill my destiny. Have a blessed day.