Church Addtion Dedication

Wow! It's been a bit since I last posted! Gotta fix that. :)

So, the last few days, our church has been a whirlwind of activity (not that it hasn't been for the last 3 years) because WE FINISHED OUR ADDITION!! Praise the Lord! This was an amazing project - adding 15,000 square feet in 2 floors plus a basement that is usable for storage and one classroom. We added a bunch of office space, a much needed main floor large classroom for our ministry to the disabled and an elevator for them, more lobby space and a beautiful new handicapped bathroom. It took 3 years to complete for 2 reasons: #1 we did it with NO debt and #2 the congregation did much of the work once the main shell was up. There were times that the work needed to stop because we just didn't have the money but the project finished up this week with money left over and us spending just $1.8 million dollars when in today's construction market, it should have cost over $3 million! How cool is that?

Today was the dedication of the new building and it was so special. We had a beautiful service with DH leading an amazing worship time and the Daughters of Zion (a group of young girls who dance and use tambourines and streamers in worship) gave a glimpse of what the Daughters of Zion in the Old Testament must have been like. What was even more special was Pastor speaking of the future of the church with the new addition and that it's not the building that's the church but our people and that the children are the future church. He then asked for all of the pastors with young children to come forward to be prayed over and the children dedicated as the future church for God's service - then all of the pastors prayed over the children of the congregation. What a blessing to see the children being brought forward and being dedicated to the service of the Lord. I cried, as usual.

We finally finished up the service with a beautiful song that we just recently learned. It's called God of this City by CBluetree and sung by Chris Tomlin:

You're the God of this city
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You Are

You're the light in the darkness
You're the hope for the hopeless
You're the peace for the restless
You Are

Bridge:
For there is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

Chorus:
Greater things have yet to come
Great things are still to be done
In this city
Greater things are still to come
And greater things are still to be done here

Today's Senses

Another blogger does this periodically and I LOVE when she does it so I figured I'd copy. :)

Outside my window: The sun is shining, the sky is blue and I see my laundry on the line. It's the first day after a 4 day heat wave (oppressive heat) and I have the house wide open to enjoy the day.

I'm thinking: I need to call my new co-leader for VBS refreshments and go over our plan together. I'm also figuring out just what I want to do for my haircut today. Get it cut shorter like I normally do (I let it go a long time between cuts so it always goes back to the same length - still long but shorter than it is now), or leave it long and just get rid of the ends. I think long since it's easier to put it up for the summer.

I am thankful for: windows - to open on days like today!

From the kitchen: I need to decide on dinner for tonight. I was supposed to do my planning and place an order for groceries on Monday but we lost our power for much of the day so now I need to go to the grocery store. With that heat we had, it was hard to figure out meals. Now it's still hot (85 degrees) but not oppressive (98 degrees), so I need to plan out the rest of the week's food. Hmmmm......

I'm wearing: A black v-neck t-shirt with a pair of khaki bermuda shorts. Gotta say I'm LOVING the bermuda shorts. They cover my stretch marks MUCH better than regular shorts. LOL

I'm reading: Other than my Bible, I'm reading "Pierced for Our Transgressions, Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution" Yeah - some light reading for the summer. LOL

Around my house: Robby is playing with trains before we do a little more school to finish out the year and Joanna is finishing up some book work. As I said earlier, I have the house open and the fresh air coming in. Ahhhhhhhh

MOVING DAY!!!

So, 2 years ago, our church embarked on a building project. We had seriously run out of office space (8 offices for a staff of about 17 full time workers and a bunch more part timers), had only a small icky kitchen for our handicapped ministry to meet, no elevator for the handicapped and not enough classroom space for larger classes to meet. So it was decided to seek God and see if we could do this. As usual, this project was going to be undertaken without debt since we feel debt is a curse, so this would be interesting.

Well, now it's 2 years later (about 3 or 4 years since we started collecting for the project), and today is moving day! The office is closed and everyone is in their grubbies. Staff are moving out of their old offices into new offices, or else the staff that had NO office are now moving into space for themselves. There is a room with workstations for part timers (each one will get their own file cabinet that they can roll to the open workstation), and there are such nice spaces now! DH will no longer be sharing his office with the business pastor so he can get some privacy to work on music and his messages for the college ministry.

It's so amazing to see this entire project coming to an end. It was a real labor of love and was a great vehicle to actually minister to the workers who entered our doors. In addition, the congregation not only gave of their wallets but of their time and sweat because much of the work that could be done by us WAS done by us. From putting up sheetrock and putting down subflooring to wallpapering and painting - we saved a tremendous amount of money by picking up bagels and BBQing burgers and dogs to feed the workers who put their sweat equity into the building. In a week and a half, we will have the building dedication - one large service to give this building to the Lord as an offering of our labors - and to dedicate it to His service. I do pray that this new building will not only physically enlarge our territory as Jabez prayed, but that it would enlarge our ministry territory. That it would free us up to be able to grow our Friendship Unlimited ministry (the ministry to the disabled), which is such an amazing outreach to a portion of the population that is often forgotten by the church. That the work of the staff will be made more efficient and in doing so, reach more for the Lord. May God be glorified in all that happens in this new addition. :)

Books

OK - I finally finished one book and just read another book - both of which I want to recommend to all.

The first is "The King James Only Controversy" by James R. White. If anyone has any questions about the whole KJV "only" issue or wants to know about how we have the translations we have and the differences between them, this is an amazing book. It's a pretty easy to follow book and Mr. White has an amazing support of reference material (the bibliography is HUGE as are the footnotes at the end of each chapter), and it's a blessing to read. The book was only $10 or so at Amazon and I think most everyone should have a copy of this. DH will be reading it soon because I think it explains the reasons behind the few differences between the versions and gives great support to the fact that the Bible translations we have today are as accurate and as much the Word of God as the KJV.

The second book is a book that I got from our homeschool presentation night. My co-leader got this at a conference and said it's a must-read for all moms and I read it this morning - fully agreeing with her assessment. The book is called "The Invisible Woman - When Only God Sees" by Nicole Johnson and it will bless all women who feel that what they do is totally invisible to the world. It's a fast read - less than an hour for most readers but it's one that will change the way you look at yourself and how you minister to your family. As for this for your birthday. Save up to get it. I promise you will be blessed.

Very funny - gotta love an old doctor

So, the strep has been going through our home and I finally was sick enough to go to the walk-in clinic near us yesterday. Sitting in church on Sunday was torture because I was TRYING to run the projector but also trying to keep from coughing and by the time the sermon started, I knew I couldn't do it. So off I went.

I went into the place, signed in and grabbed the business card and saw a name that looked familiar. It was the same name as the doctor that my husband had as a young man - their family doctor. The doctor I saw never introduced himself but checked me over, did a strep test (negative) and diagnosed me with an infection deeper in my throat (not into the lungs though because they were clear). We knew infection because of the ick I can cough up (sorry for the TMI), so he put me on an antibiotic. I took a look at the prescription and it had this doctor's name on it so I asked the receptionist if he had been a family doctor in my husband's childhood town. Turns out it WAS him!! Fortunately I was OK with the diagnosis because this doctor messed up my hubby pretty seriously in his treatment of DH's asthma. Told my husband when I got home and we both had a good laugh. He had come out of retirement. :) But I'm now on an antibiotic and already feeling a little better.

But the best part of the entire thing was the doctor asking about the kids (because I told him my two little ones had strep). He asked how old they were and I told him 5, 7, 16 and 18 and he looked shocked. "Wait - HOW old are you??" and he looked at my chart. I'm 43. He told me that he thought I was 27 - and said "MAYBE 30 but no more than that." I don't care if he mistreated my husband for years and that he now has a 70% lung capacity to prove it - this is a great doctor! LOL Yeah, I know - he's old and isn't good at diagnosing so I guess I should take it with a grain of salt but I'm not going to. He took 16 years off my appearance! Ahhhh - the joy.

Here we go again

A quote from another blog - where my comment apparently was blocked:

"If I poured you a glass of pure, sparkling, bottled water and then added just a drop of gasoline would you drink it? Then why would you read a Bible that has a "little bit" of error?"

What is sad is that the "little bit of gasoline" is an outright lie. It's sad to me that people would listen to the lies of those who wish to water down the Word of God to their own standards. They make the KJV the standard against all other Bibles - that other Bibles "take out", "delete", "remove" or whatever. But when you measure the KJV to the Textus Receptus, you can see the exact same thing happening - the KJV removes, changes or even ADDS to the Bible from the original text. The arguments against the "modern versions" that are not based off the TR can be turned around and brought right back to the KJV.

What is even sadder is the extremes that the KJVO crowd goes to - even going so far as to say that the "Word" in John 1:1 refers to the King James Bible. "I have one God - the King James Bible - not 10 different Gods who all say things a little differently. " said by Pastor Steve Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church. I know of atleast one woman who's husband and she feel that he's a great pastor and 'right on'. **SHAKING HEAD**

What's surprising to me is that any person who has studied the translation issues through history - even the KJV writers themselves - have not fallen under the false teaching of the KJVO cult. I asked for the name of any respected theologian and I've gotten none. I asked for doctrine that has been changed and I've gotten none. That is because the KJVO doctrine cannot stand up to the truth.

The "gasoline" is as much of a lie as the man on one board that speaks of the government spying on us through our TV sets. It saddens me when people get into this issue and continue to push it. To say that God's Word is poison and harmful is very dangerous and I'd not want to be in any church, around anyone, who would teach such heresy. It now puts doubts in God's Word and the reliability of what we have being the truth or not.

We can have full assurance that the Scriptures we have - whether KJV, NIV, ESV, NASB or others contain the full truth of God's Word - do not compromise the Gospel - and are not in "error" as some will claim. Yes, there are differences and some passages/verses/words that might be in question. Yes, some of the passages/verses/words are not in all of the manuscript evidence that we have. But are we going to stand on a single translation or are we going to study the manuscripts and come to a right conclusion? The TR is not without error. Period. There is no "grand conspiracy" to take the diety of Christ out of the Bible with the modern translators. I thank God that He is stronger than the enemy and has preserved His Word for us in multiple versions for the English speaking world.

Bleck - Strep

Seems that strep has hit our home. My son came down with it last Friday (last week) and is on Amoxicillin. The funny thing was that he had NO sore throat - just a bad cough! But his tonsils were super swollen and the glands in his neck were swollen so the doctor figured he'd test him. Sure enough - strep. Then this Thursday night, my little one said that her throat hurt and she was looking kind of icky, though no fever. So she went to the doctor Friday and ..... strep. In the meantime, I came down with a bad cough and MY tonsils are swollen so I'm guessing I have strep too but I can't get to the doctor until Tuesday at the earliest because my doctor is only in Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday. SIGH If I'm up tonight coughing or if I feel more sick tomorrow, I may go to the walk-in place near us. I hope they take our insurance!!


So tonight is daddy and son sleeping on the boat (first night to sleep on the boat this season) and girls' night to just veg. I bought the new National Treasure 2 and we WERE going to watch it but the teens did nothing they were supposed to so no movie night. I just may even keep them away from the cake I bought. ;) Nah - I'll be nice and share. LOL