Building It, While Flying It

One of the greatest challenges our pastors, staff, and church family have faced in the relocation of our worship services to our phase one facility on our new Southridge Campus is that we are getting all geared up for what we will do there while we are currently doing what we do now.

This weekend several hundred Bible Center folks have gone through music, sound, lighting, nursery, children's ministry, and first impressions training sessions in the new building. We are working so hard to get all the programming, services, and ministries ready for our move to Southridge on Palm Sunday, March 16th, while at the same time working to ensure that our ministries and services are the best they can be today, Sunday March 2nd. Wow!

It would be a totally different challenge (yet still a huge one) if we could simply have "closed" our Sunday services for a couple of months and taken all of our time, resources, and energy to focus on March 16th and beyond. But we could not have done this! Each Sunday nearly 2,000 people gather to worship the Lord and grow in Him. People are being deeply ministered to weekly with our current services, ministries, and activities. Yet, we and others expect to maintain the same passion for excellence as we gather at Southridge two weeks from today.

Our challenge as the Bible Center leadership and family is that we are in the intensity of preparing for a totally new site, while at the same time serving one another and the community right now. As the pastor of this wonderful congregation and the leader of our tremendous staff, I am proud (in the right sense) of all the efforts of our pastors, administrators, secretaries, custodians, and church family. Everyone is doing a great job of doing what we need to do today to provide quality worship services and ministries each Sunday while getting ready to do it all at Southridge.

You might say "We are 'Building It, While Flying It'." We are getting up and running while up and running. What a challenge!

If you are a part of this great adventure of "Building It, While Flying It," thanks for praying, serving, teaching, organizing, encouraging, making music, caring, helping, and being what God wants you to be. I stand amazed at all the hard work, time, energy, and skill being utilized to ensure that folks come to, grow in, live for, and talk about Jesus! You are a blessing to me!

For the past few months, I have shared with our pastors and others a little TV commercial that captures the concept of "Building It, While Flying It." What we are doing is much like building a commercial airplane while it is flying and its passengers are being served. Enjoy the clip. You will probably relate to all that is going on at Bible Center right now in this historic transition with eternal implications!