I may have mentioned before that one thing our new church has is a preschool. The pastor’s wife and I run it. We don’t have very many students and have questioned why that is. Any advise we have been given has done absolutely no good. In fact, most of the things mentioned have been things we have tried already. Through all of the questioning, the Lord has given me peace that He knows what He is doing. The students will come when they are supposed to come. We now know why we didn’t have more students….
Our church was renting a building that we put a lot of money and man hours into. The place was transformed! Before we started on it, we prayed about it and all agreed that this was meant as a blessing to the church that would follow us. The longer we were in the building, the more we saw the problems with it. The owner seemed unable or unwilling to fix the leaky roof (thank God for a dry winter). He was not willing to fulfill his responsibilities in the building. We finally reached a place where we could no longer put money into a sinking (literally) building. The year’s lease was up and nobody was willing to sign up to be there for another year. So, it was time to move on. The long term goal is to purchase land and build. In order to do that, we need to save money. After a search through all the possibilities, our church decided on rooms in a local hotel. We are spoiled there. They set up and clean up. There is also more technology in our new place. We have power point instead of overheads for our worship service. Of course we do have to set up the sound system every week. Brian, my husband, and the sound guy go every Saturday evening and set it up. Chris, the sound guy, puts the power points together every week.
With the move, we started a new believer’s class at 9:00 on Sunday mornings. I teach the younger children while the older children and new converts stay in the main room. Between Sunday School and church, we have donuts and other breakfast food available. The hotel has graciously allowed us to have the use of the swimming pool every fifth Sunday. We have dinner there and go swimming. They were even kind enough to allow us to us the pool as a baptismal. It was pretty cool. There was a baptism service, the children swam while we set up our dinner. The hotel has grills that were great for a cook out.
You may be wondering about the preschool….our pastor opened up his home for the preschool. Their living room has been transformed into a classroom. We have three students. The city allows unlicensed childcare in homes as long as you keep it to five or less children. That’s about all that will fit into the room right now. We are currently searching for a place to license for next year. John and Dawn need their livingroom and we want more students. Currently, Dawn and I are more volunteers than anything. We already have a student or two for next year. In fact, we have grown since deciding to move out of the building. Dawn actually keeps an infant every day of the week.
By the way, I mentioned how the preschool grew once we decided to move out of the building. The church has grown since we made the decision. Right after the decision was made, 5 people were saved. The ones who were saved, were baptized at the hotel. In fact, one of them has invited his parents to church. They have been there three Sundays in a row and have become a part of our church family. We have started an exercise program of sorts. We walk every weekday, sometimes twice, depending on what is going on in the evening. Also, on Wednesday evenings we use the room for children’s church and do a Christian exercise DVD. So even though we have moved out of the church building, the Lord is blessing us more. It’s interesting how when we listen for His direction and follow it, good things happen.