New sign

Well, after much anticipation, our new church sign has arrived...and it is sweet! It does all kinds of neat things. I am so excited, as we have already had someone come visit our church just because they saw the sign.

For those of you who haven't heard the story, let me break it down real quick. We were give this awesome building that we were renting from another church. We started having workdays to renovate it and redecorate. We had been using temporary vinyl signs to let the community know we were here, and they looked as beautiful as some temporary vinyl signs could look (which is not to appealing). We decided we needed to get a more permanent sign that matched the look and feel of our church. It was then that we heard about electronic signs from someone in our church who had done all the research for the last church he was a part of. He knew all of the specifications, what would be required, and even knew how to create graphics for them. Then, as we were having that conversation, we discovered that someone in our church had a brother-in-law who worked for a sign company that happened to sell, guess what, electric signs. Neat how God works things out.

There was only one catch, the sign would cost just under $23,000. So my advisory team and I began to seek the Lord about this decision. We unanimously agreed that God was telling us to move forward with this. So we presented it to the church. Everyone was excited about it.

In true Freedom Life fashion, we decided that a “fund drive” would be out of the question. Instead, we threw a Giving Party. We get pretty excited about being able to be a part of what God is doing. At the party, everyone was invited to bring whatever they wanted to contribute towards this cause.

After the party, we had received all but $4000 of the sign. With only one month left to pay for it, someone asked me what we were going to do about the difference. “Nothing at all,” was my reply. “This sign is God’s will, so it’s God’s bill. And God is more than capable of paying his bills!”

So I waited, knowing that God would send the rest. In fact, I was excited about the fact that the sign would not only be covered, but that we would have extra to do some landscaping and put in some flowers or something around it.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long. Within two weeks of the Giving Party, a gentleman who had just started visiting our church came to me and told me that he had heard we were raising money for a nice new electronic sign. We had purposely not announced this at our weekend services, so I knew that him coming to me was a “God thing”. When I confirmed this he asked me how much was left to raise. When I told him $4000, he smiled and said that his family would be writing a check for $4000 that morning to cover the difference. By the time all was said and done, we ended up paying for the sign in full, and having a few hundred extra dollars to do some landscaping!

We serve a great God, and I have been amazed at how faithful He really is, as we stay true to the vision of reaching out to those who don’t know Him. I am grateful that as we trust in Him to lead us, and stay committed to not getting in His way with what we think is best, He continues to do just that!

God’s will, God’s bill!

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said that He would build his church and the gates of hell would not overcome it!

Keep building Jesus, we are here to serve.