The Missing Pulpit

Someone stopped me today to ask me where the pulpit was this past weekend. Jeff Josephi, who originally built the pulpit, is currently sanding and refinishing it. He originally put not only his skill, but also his heart into constructing it and I know he is working with it again with the same ability and passion. Our original stain color for the pulpit does not match the stain of the wood work in the new building. The pulpit really stood out. It was obvious to anyone who saw it on the Southridge platform last week that it clashed in that setting.

I was suppose to mention during last week's morning services that the pulpit was being prepared for Dedication Sunday, March 16th. Two years ago we had our Groundbreaking service (see below) in the afternoon of Palm Sunday. This year Palm Sunday is Dedication Day. Wow!

During the Groundbreaking of 2006, we revealed that we had already built the most important part of the new building at Southridge: the pulpit. Above is a picture of me standing at it on that day. My remarks that afternoon emphasized that with the groundbreaking and the building of a new facility, Bible Center would change a whole lot, but that the message would not change at all.

The new pulpit symbolized the necessity of keeping the main thing the main thing. It reminded us that we must remain anchored to the Word of God as the generations prior to ours had done at Bible Center. At that time, we did not know exactly what the building colors and details would be, but we all knew, no matter what, we could not veer away from communicating the truth of Scripture.

May we always be Bible-centered.

The pulpit will return and the message will not change!