Space ... The Final Frontier

Over the last three years I have had the pleasure (and sometimes the burden) of helping Heartland Church and our partners through a lot of challenges. Some of those challenges are rather obvious (like the move to Carrollton, getting our Deacons in place, and so forth). Others have probably been more subtle, or even completely off the radar of most of our partners (things like staff reorganization, policy changes and that kind of thing).

I have to say that I love the quiet times around the church -- those times when everything seems to be clicking on all cylinders and I can just sit back amazed at what God has accomplished. We need to enjoy those times, because they don't happen very often. That just isn't the "norm" at Heartland Church. And I praise God for that.

There are certainly some challenges I have been involved in over the last three years (including some in my personal life) that I would like to have avoided. But I have to believe even those were part of God's plan. For the most part, though, I look forward to the challenges. If we are not challenged as a church we are standing still -- and standing still is not good. We knew that moving to Carrollton would be a challenge. In fact, we assumed that the move would create entirely new challenges, obstacles and problems that we would have to overcome. And, we have not been disappointed!!

If you are a "Star Trek" fan you might think that the title of this post has something to do with outer space. Well, I can assure you that the next big challenge at Heartland Church has nothing to do with space travel. It does have something to do with space though.

If you were here for second service on Easter Sunday you probably didn't see me. That's because I spent pretty much the entire service holding crying two to three year-olds (it turns out if you hold them long enough the crying stops!). All of our classrooms were filled to capacity that day, and I figured that helping with some of the kids was my best and highest use.

Two things became evident for me that day. First, Katy needs more volunteers to help out with the kids. We have some great teachers and other volunteers, and I am really excited about our Children's Ministry. But, as we grow we really need to continue to attract people who have the gifting and passion to minister to kids.

The second thing that became obvious is that we need more space. No, space is not our final challenge or frontier, but it is probably our next big project. We are just to the point where we really need to expand the size and number of our classrooms -- both for the kids and for adults. What a great problem to have!!!

We have already asked some people who know a whole lot more about construction than Pastor Dan or I do to come up with some alternatives for dealing with our growth, and I hope that we have some plans to share with our partners in the next few months. God is good!!!!