I’m currently preaching through Philippians. A couple of weeks ago we focused on Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” I gotta be honest, it’s been hard to believe the completion of the remodel of our new place was ever going to come. We started taking bets on whether or not Jesus was gonna show, or we would be in the new place. Being with Jesus would be the greater event. However, with all that we put into the building, I’d be lying if I didn’t plan on asking if in eternity we could bring the building with us, just so we could complete it!

Joking aside, we are ecstatic that we are finally in our new place. It’s been a two and a half year process to appease the city, get the workers to show, and put in countless hours. We’re three weeks in and it’s been such a blessing. I remember when we started in a hotel. We started with me, Beth, and Elisa. We met another couple and many Sundays, that’s all we had. One day I received a Facebook message from a family that said they played the keyboard and she had a family of eight. I thought, “This will triple our church!”. Then when we got into our old building (new to us then) we thought, “How are we going to ever fill this place up? I mean, with all of our parking (fourteen places) and all the room in the building, we’re going to be here for a while.”

We quickly outgrew that place. It was good to us and we learned and grew a lot. God has been good. And the many donors and people who have gone above and beyond completely amaze and humble me. Now we have a beautiful place that can seat 200+ and has a much bigger parking lot. Our first Sunday we had many new visitors and the parking lot was full (I was actually sick with a fever the week before and still recovering the first Sunday)! Lucky for us the neighbor businesses have given us the ok to park there (that gives us about 20-30 more places). Our first Sunday was more of a soft opening. We plan to have the grand opening March 30th. Already, though, we have multiple couples and families that have begun to come regularly and get involved. We even had a nineteen year old boy get saved last week. His family had told him he wasn’t good enough to come or be saved. We gave him the truth. Now he is on fire and we have 2 more baptisms coming up.

It’s just the beginning of what we believe God is going to do through us at Authentic Church. We’ve got big plans. There have been many times where I have questioned whether or not God is doing anything through me, our church, and in this ministry. I’m probably like anyone else. We go through those doubting seasons and valley times. But I’m learning more and more to trust Him all the more in those times. Those aren’t wasted times. It’s actually in those times when He can strengthen you the most and prepare you for where He is planning on taking you. The verse I read from Philippians is becoming more and more real to me. “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” I just thank God who has throughout the years chipped away at the doubt I’ve had that that verse was true. God is good, all the time