‍

You remember that game when you were younger?  Yeah, that one.  Everyone stands shoulder to shoulder (Oof... Remember when that wasn’t weird or uncomfortable?  ...okay, I digress).  SO, everyone stands shoulder to shoulder.  The person on one end receives a whispered message.

Inevitably, either on purpose or by the nature of passing info from person to person, the message that began, “The monkey handed the elephant a yellow banana to eat” becomes, “Tree funky hoped a tank Atlanta!”  It’s disaster.  But it’s closer to real life than we can imagine, isn’t it?

And EVERY time I have ever played that game, a person in the message passing line says out loud, “Hey the game would be SO much easier if you just told us all at the same time!”  UH… yep.  DUH.  OF course it would.  But we all know that’s impossible.  There’s no easy solution to communication these days.  It’s really that simple.  Jesus has been risen for 2000 years and we still haven’t all heard the good news. So maybe we’ll never quite figure it all out, but let’s keep trying.  The Good News must be shared, like The Experience sings, “until the whole world hears!”

Well, we’ve got some good news and we’d love to share it with you.  And yes, it feels like the telephone game sometimes, but it is what it is.  SO in an effort to clear up any confusion here are 10 details of what we’re up to. (Feel free to share this, so you have the most updated information to share!):

1. We have a plan to build a barn-like multiuse building out on our land at the South campus.  It’ll be used for worship and all kinds of other ways that we can interact with the community.
2. The hope is to try and break ground on it in2021.  (yep, THIS year!)
3. We’re designing it to be primarily multiuse and reflect the rural nature of Weddington/Waxhaw, thus the fact that it’ll look way less like any church you’ve seen before and way MORE like a big pavilion/barn.
4. Right now, it’s our hope that it can hold around 250 people in a circular seating pattern.
5. Plan is to have large roll up doors so it can serve simultaneous indoor/outdoor uses.
6. We are voting on selling the piece of property next to the Providence campus (currently the garden) on March 7th in a congregational meeting to use that money to get a huge head start on funding this build.
7. We plan to be able to move the garden ministry to our land at South.
8. In the meantime, Christ South will be BOTH online (Facebook/YouTube Live) at 10am and in person at 4pm (at Threshold Church).
9. We plan to build Phase one including the “Little Barn” of the picture included.
10. We’re going to paint and add large garage doors to the “Hospitality Barn” - the barn that has the deck on it.  It’ll serve the lawn area for coffee, outreach and more!

Like we read in Isaiah 43:19:

      See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a

      way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland!

As we wonder about the great things that God has already done, is doing and is about to do at Christ Lutheran, we are so blessed to be able to even THINK about building a space for our ministry footprint to the South. What a beautiful thing that is! God is so good!  And God is doing great things through YOU!!  Thank you for your generosity and willing to do a new thing.

So, how will God use this new space?  How will God be glorified by its use?  How many people will experience the gospel in the new place? How many lives transformed?

Let’s pray that the answer to that is loud and forever clear!!

May the Lord God of the “new thing” be able to use us, our resources, our time, our energy, our land and our new building to be glorified, and may you, Lord God, transform lives for decades to come by using our gifts now.  In the name of Jesus, Amen!

‍

‍