From Delusion to Faith

     In my last blog I wrote about being full of faith or being delusional and how my faith journey with God has taken me down a very interesting road. I find it funny that after 20 years in ministry and a couple of failed church plants the Lord has me at that cross roads again. As I mentioned in my previous post, The First Presbyterian Church here closed after 138 years and is now selling their property. After stumbling upon the property being advertised for sale online visions of ministry began to fill my imagination.  I shared the information with my wife and she thought it was interesting but shared with me her doubts because of the other ministry failures we have experienced. I talked with a very dear friend of mine, who is doing ministry work in Norway, and as he saw the property online he became excited and began to see what I saw. I told him that I was tempted to call the realtor so that I could see  the inside of the property and encouraged me to do so. Before I contacted the realtor, my wife and I went to the property and walked around it and prayed and ask God if we could have it and if not that whoever bought it would be blessed there to do awesome ministry. My friend then made an unexpected trip here to Florida where I was able to show him the property and we prayed again. I was finally able to get an appointment to see the property and I was so amazed because of the office space, classrooms, conference rooms, etc. The only drawback is the sanctuary needs a new roof, electrical work and the restrooms need to be modified to accommodate the disabled.

     As my wife and I walked through the facilities I could literally see us there. I saw our church operating a daycare, starting a school, assisting people to find employment, youth ministry and community outreach as well as many other services.  When we walked through the sanctuary and I stood in the pulpit I could see people filling the seats and me preaching the Word of God. Afterwards we prayed again. That day my wife caught the same vision that I had. We still have the same issue which is no people and no money. During one of conversations my wife said something to me that struck a nerve. She said, "You have an awesome message and you are definitely called by God but nobody knows who you are." After she said that I realized that she was really telling the truth. So after that conversation I went to the Lord in prayer about that and he led me to join the NAACP and also meet with the city manager. I emailed the city manager and asked him this question, "We are starting a new church and how can we help the city?" He responded back within a few minutes and asked if we could meet. My wife and I went to city hall where we met with the city manager and the Community Engagement Director and shared our vision. One thing the city manager said was that he was surprised we asked how we could help instead of asking for the city to help us. The meeting was very beneficial because they were able to give us the contact information to people we can reach out to for collaboration.

     The question is still, how will we buy this property? I have never asked people for money before nor have I ever tried to do any type of fund raising. I knew that this had to be God because out of the blue I came across crowd sourcing websites and I saw how they used videos to help them reach their goals. We don't have the money to hire a professional to film and edited a good video but then it hit me. My youngest daughter likes to create and edit videos for fun plus she does such a great job at it. So I have recruited her to produce, direct and edit this video for us. I then had to come up with an interesting idea for this video and it came to me. I recently took up biking for exercise and fun. I like to go on bike rides on the local bike trails and I eventually want to do a long distance bike tour. So my idea is to  record me doing a bike tour of the city and showcase the areas we want to work in and end the video at the church property we want to buy and base the church out of. We are going to start production this week and I am so excited. I have also started a men's ministry where I am meeting with a young man on Saturday's which is probably doing more for me than it is for him. I am looking so forward to seeing what God is going to do especially since I feel like I am in over my head.