Fresh Paint and the Smell of Glue

For the last few months our church has been preparing to move into our new building. For 13 years we have, like many other churches, been living a nomadic existence. School halls, community centres, and homes have sustained us through various ups and downs since we planted the church in 1996.

As I write I am lying on the floor of the new church office (no furniture yet) as we prepare to open this weekend. The smell of fresh paint and carpet glue fills my nostrils, and seems to heighten the dreamlike sense I have of moving in!

At school today, as my wife picked up our girls, a classroom assistant stopped her for a chat.
"I was on the bus yesterday going into town. Everyone was looking at your new church building and commenting on how good it was looking!"

Those words mean a lot. If you knew the state the property was in when we bought it... Broken windows, the stench of death, smashed furniture. Paperwork and destruction littered the auditorium. A year ago some of us saw a parable there. This broken building is like the lives of so many people in our world - broken, destroyed, and aparently hopeless - but faith is the substance of things not seen!

It is not about buildings is it? Empty churches are the Cathedrals to our folly! It is ALWAYS about people.

Moving into our new church building is a sign of God's promise to us. Transformed buildings make people sit up and take notice. God is in the tranformation business, and He has an agenda for change.

Will you commit again to his agenda, not through conformity to this world, but by being transformed by the renewing of our mind!