Countdown to Year Seven: The Renovation Church

We are days away from celebrating our 7th year anniversary as North Creek Church!  For the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing highlights from this incredible journey.

Around our 2nd year anniversary, we made a call that changed the course of our church.  An old night club in Hazel Dell had shut it’s doors two years earlier and the landlord was struggling to rent one of the ugliest buildings on Hwy 99.  We wanted to get a look inside.

As our team walked through that building I think we all saw the reality.  There was filth, damage, and challenges everywhere.  We were a church of about 80 people with no money, but something about this very pathetic old bar was calling our name.  It was a mess, but then again, aren’t we all?  That run-down place just needed some love, attention, and time to be used once again for a greater purpose.  It echoed the smallness of our beginnings and we wanted in.  Through a series of miracles, we not only negotiated a rent we could afford, but we fixed it up to working order with a lot of volunteer effort and all of the meager $2700 we had to spend.  We moved in November 23, 2008.

The next five years would be a constant project to make that old building the best it could be.  It’s still what I call “Funky-Chic”, but when I look around all I see is one miracle after the other.  It seemed like the renovation of that building mirrored the renovation of the hearts within it.  I will forever see the face of the dad that we prayed for who walked in one day and never left.  I see every one of the baptisms in our portable tank.  I see the tears of the people we prayed with to know Jesus.  I see the hopeful faces of the people that we handed out first Bibles to.  I see teenagers flooding out of there on a Thursday night.  I see greatness where there once was devastation.

There is a bittersweet moment for me when I remember that this old night club is not our permanent home.  It’s just a stopping point on our journey and our time there will end.  Still, it will always be a season where we feel like God said, “I need you here for now.  Not because it makes sense, but because there are some people I need to reach.  People who look a lot like this building…abandoned, forgotten, left in disrepair…I’ve called you to look past that and see their potential.  Always remember…I am the God of renovation.“  

That is all we ever want to do…Go where God leads and watch Him repair what is broken.  If you are feeling like your life is a mess, come on in.  We believe there is greatness in you.

 

I wrote a blog a long time ago that is the story of one of the greatest moments of my life that happened in this building.  You can read it HERE.

 

 

To Be Continued