What do I want to say? It matters what you are committed to, or how devoted you are to worship and church attendance. But it’s more than just showing up that will make a great church, it is building a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Do I want to go back to the times when the church basement flooded and we spent hours bent over with towels and wet vacs cleaning up the two inches of sludge and soggy carpets? No, but having experienced it, I appreciate the beautiful church we have now that was built on higher ground.
Who can forget the squirrels who used to go in the rafters and chew on wires and terrorize everyone with their antics? Or, the heater not lasting through the winter. In the early days we held services in the prayer room.
I remember the stained glass windows, the Christmas plays and Easter dramas. I remember working in our Sunday school room on a Saturday night until well after 11 P.M. and hammering with the beat of the Spanish drums (as they were having service) If we hammered while they drummed we didn’t disturb their amazing worship.
I remember being there one Saturday night so late that everyone had left and I had to walk through the dark sanctuary to get to the front door. So many prayers were made in that sanctuary and all of the people who were baptized in Jesus’ Name and filled with the Holy Ghost, is phenomenal. It didn’t happen overnight.
A vision, a burden and time seeking God were sown into the very fiber of our being as we continued to pray and believe God for all that he had in store for us as a body of believers.
Some gave up and moved on, but the core group continued to see souls added to the church, and set their mind on trusting in God’s promise to multiply us. There is a song, “Beyond the open door, there’s a new and fresh anointing, hear the Spirit calling you to go, walk on through the door and the Lord will go before you, into a greater power you’ve never known before, just beyond the open door. Where he leads me I will follow…” We have hope in his promise.
Under the carpet in our church now, at key locations throughout the building there are names and promises and prayers scribbled in Sharpies. We hold to those promises. We don’t take our worship lightly, as something else we must do and check off of our packed to do list; no, we know the sacrifices that have been made to keep moving forward so that people who have just started their journeys can benefit from the fruits of so many believers’ labor. As you look around, today, unless you knew the sacrifices made, it probably won’t be so noticeable because everything works smoothly, but just know that today’s benefits are a direct result of sacrificial giving and it’s something that we must preserve and let it continue…
In the Time of the Lattereign 