Undotted i's
Our church grew to the point of needing two services around 1996. The church had been saving money to buy land since I came in 1982, and by 1998 we were able to pay cash ($100,000) for the field and woods behind the church (where our present building stands). It exhausted our savings, but we had room to grow!
One of our leaders said, “Now we can start saving for another ten years to get a down payment on a new building.” I felt like a balloon deflating and blowing aimlessly around the room and blurted out: “NO. I CAN’T do this for ten more years! We need to get into a building sooner than that!”
We had been in double services for four years. I had no office and worked from home. I had no retirement, no health insurance, and all business expenses were out-of-pocket. I had also been working part-time jobs to supplement my salary. I had been working this way for almost twenty years. I was almost forty years old. Ten more years to save a down payment would put me at fifty, and I’d be pushing sixty before we were in the building! In the meantime, we’d have to keep growing and manage all the growth in our tiny old building. Would that mean a third service? A fourth service?
These were questions for which I had no answers, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. I am a very conservative soul. I don’t like risk. I prefer certainty and security, all I’s dotted and all T’s crossed.
But in this case, if I plodded forward in my usual cautious manner, I was looking at ten more difficult years. I decided to take a riskier approach. We challenged the congregation we wanted to build a new building as soon as possible. We had no money and no idea how to make that happen. I knew only that it had to be done.
Within five years, in June 2003, we were in a new building!
I entered that project without the foggiest idea of how to lead us where we needed to go. The I’s weren’t dotted and the T’s weren’t crossed. I didn’t even know what the I’s and T’s were! I knew we had to go forward, one step at a time, and deal with challenges and obstacles as they arose. We did, and somehow in God’s providence it all came together. The Lord sent the right people at the right time, each doing his/her part to move us forward.
Sometimes working (and leading) through change is like that.
One of our leaders said, “Now we can start saving for another ten years to get a down payment on a new building.” I felt like a balloon deflating and blowing aimlessly around the room and blurted out: “NO. I CAN’T do this for ten more years! We need to get into a building sooner than that!”
We had been in double services for four years. I had no office and worked from home. I had no retirement, no health insurance, and all business expenses were out-of-pocket. I had also been working part-time jobs to supplement my salary. I had been working this way for almost twenty years. I was almost forty years old. Ten more years to save a down payment would put me at fifty, and I’d be pushing sixty before we were in the building! In the meantime, we’d have to keep growing and manage all the growth in our tiny old building. Would that mean a third service? A fourth service?
These were questions for which I had no answers, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. I am a very conservative soul. I don’t like risk. I prefer certainty and security, all I’s dotted and all T’s crossed.
But in this case, if I plodded forward in my usual cautious manner, I was looking at ten more difficult years. I decided to take a riskier approach. We challenged the congregation we wanted to build a new building as soon as possible. We had no money and no idea how to make that happen. I knew only that it had to be done.
Within five years, in June 2003, we were in a new building!
I entered that project without the foggiest idea of how to lead us where we needed to go. The I’s weren’t dotted and the T’s weren’t crossed. I didn’t even know what the I’s and T’s were! I knew we had to go forward, one step at a time, and deal with challenges and obstacles as they arose. We did, and somehow in God’s providence it all came together. The Lord sent the right people at the right time, each doing his/her part to move us forward.
Sometimes working (and leading) through change is like that.