Crossroads Permanent Home, Part III

A ridiculous work schedule kept me from my blog for a couple of days.  Hope you're still there.  This is a continuing series of posts on our current plans for Crossroads permanent home.  Be sure to read all the posts in the series.

"For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost?" 

Luke 14:28

Those words Jesus spoke, and the words that came after them, have implications for many areas of our lives.  The context in which he is speaking is discipleship - the cost of being a disciple.  But the Scripture is completely relevant for anything you're building, whether it's a life, a family, a career...or a church home.

One of the things we recognized while God was opening the door for us to purchse the dance studio, was that we had long ignored, or just looked past and stepped over, how makeshift and shoddy our Children's Ministry facilities were.  We also recognized that we have a young congregation at Crossroads and, as a result, some days our toddler and pre-school areas are bursting with children. 

We began to recognize that not everyone who walk through the doors at Crossroads would automatically understand - or appreciate - the opportunities represented by portable church.  In fact, we saw many young families leave Crossroads because our children's facilities left much to be desired.

We counted the cost, and the cost was too high to afford.  The cost, that is, of ignoring how important and valuable for our entire church family, upgrading our children's faclities would be.  We didn't have a lot of cards to play, so we went "all in" with the cards we had.  We might not have a permanent home for our entire church, but what God placed in our hands was the opportunity to have a permanent home for all the children of every Crossroads attender.

"Let the little children come to me,  Don't stop them!  For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children".  Matthew 19:14

We dove into remodeling our new building with tremendous passion.  We constructed modest offices for our staff, and with tons of volunteer hours, creative ideas, and staff members with hammers and paint brushes in their hands, we turned 4000 square feet of space into awesome PERMANENT facilities.  A new nursery, toddler area, pre-school, and elementary space that is shared with our teens.  We planned and worked dilligently to make the very best use of the resources we had, spending less than $10 a square foot to renovate a frumpy, worn-out dance studio into Kids Crossing, Crossroads Teens and the church's permanent offices.  It was a tremendous comittment.  It cost something to do it.  But we counted the cost, and the cost of NOT doing anything far outweighed the cost of progress.

All of a sudden, PLAN B began to look more like something God actually envisioned in the first place.  A project we could take on and accomplish.  Something we could handle.  If you read from Luke 14:28, you see Jesus explaining why it's so important to count the cost.  He says:

"Who would begin construction of a building without first counting the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?  Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you.  They would say, 'There's the person who started the building and couldn't afford to finish it'".  Luke 14:28-30

No one's laughing at us, and they're not going to either.  And I am SO GRATEFUL that God directed us to THIS project FIRST!  We were not ready yet in any way, shape, or form to begin renovating the College Cinema.  We weren't ready to buy the building as a church family, and we weren't ready to finish it.  We have a building now.  It's small, but we're not "despising the day of small beginnings".  We're rejoicing that God has protected us from our own zeal, and given us time to grow and get stronger.  Along the way we have learned a great deal about doing a big project together.  We've learned about raising some money to do it, and the sum total of that experience is that we have a permanent building RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO WHERE WE MEET ON SUNDAY that is an absolute showplace anyone who calls Crossroads home can be proud of and grateful for.

What will God do next?  In the next post I'll share with you exactly where we are today with Clark Theatres, and with the land on the OTHER side of the building we now call home.  Peace!