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Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
March 17, 2006 
Dear Family and Friends,
I do my best on a regular basis to have lunch with either Pastor Mike Albro or Paul Foss, our own resident “force of nature” at Damascus Road. The reason is that I always leave with stories of God’s power at work and a renewed determination to be a man of God.
The third leg of this troika of morale-boosters in my life is Clay Peck, the Senior Pastor of Grace Place in Colorado; a congregation we launched from Damascus Road back in 1998. Now you’ll get the opportunity to see why Clay is such a treasure in my life. This Sunday Clay will be speaking for both services and his message is titled: Experiencing the Miraculous. His message centers in John 2:5, where Mary the mother of Jesus says of Jesus: “Whatever He tells you to do—do it!”
We’ll also celebrate two baptisms in second service this Sunday and Bob will teach the second of our two membership classes: More About Damascus Road. If you are on the membership route, be sure to attend that class.
Our closing date for buying the 70 acres of land is March 28. On March 27 I’m asking the whole congregation to set aside time to pray for God’s will alone to be done that day. It was last JUNE that we signed the “intent to buy” contract! We’ve jumped through a dozen hurdles since with the County and the Kelley’s, now let’s pray for the conclusion to this “exploration” phase, so we can move ahead with the building project. We have enough funds after the purchase to take us through the rest of this fiscal year’s preliminary costs for civil engineering, architectural plans, county applications and project management. Then we kick into the adventure of 1 Chronicles 28:20-21 and honestly I can’t wait. As we build a central House of Light we will primarily stay focused on our greater calling to “Build Homes of Light by the Power of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The top priority of the next few years is not constructing a new facility, but fanning the passion in our hearts for sharing our faith in Jesus.
In anticipation of entering Phase 2 of our journey to a permanent home, I wrote the Development Team about some key ideas I hope will guide the next few years as we plan our permanent home. I want to share the heart of that letter with all of you now.
When I met Mark Schaeffer, our Project Manager, he asked if decisions at our church are based on: a benevolent dictatorship (senior pastor makes all the calls), a Daddy Warbucks-system (big donors make all the calls) or a congregational free-for-all (everybody votes on and argues about everything.) He isn’t excited about any of those models, but they are the ones he’s worked with in the past. I told him we were none of the above; that we are a shared leadership community with increasingly healthy circles of defined responsibility and authority—especially among the Elders, Trustees and Staff. That fact is going to make the next few years much better.
In that spirit, I want to share my heart, in advance of this [Development Team] meeting, more to reiterate how much I know I don’t know than to declare all the things I expect. I have no well-defined snap-shot of a particular type of building exterior or interior, no definite wild dreams beyond the wish that cell towers would become obsolete very soon! We’ll arrive at all those decisions together. I only want to offer two broad conceptual frameworks, concerning the facility and land, followed by the four very general, bottom line principles that I hope will guide us as we dream and plan. Here they are:
Two Conceptual Frameworks:
- LIGHT: This time around our Mission is to build homes of light—and our Mission should be reflected in our architecture. No more gloomy interiors. Projectors are powerful enough now that we do not need to design a worship center as a dark place with bright stage lighting in order to pull off creative media elements. We will be on beautiful land. Let’s design to maximize that fact as a hook for all the people whose worship style is one where they come to God through nature. Jesus said: “I AM the Light of the World and all who follow Me will never walk in darkness!” Our place of worship should reflect the One we worship. One definite idea (but no definite design) I have in this respect is a very special Foyer of Light, a first-impression entrance that is full of light, pictures and information that tell visitors our story, our values, who we are. My dream is that our foyer will be a bright, colorful, joyful and spacious place where anyone can pick up lots of crucial facts about our commitment to children, missions, evangelism and worship. They should see visuals of how leadership works and core beliefs and a clear layout of the facility. In addition we can place in tasteful settings, above doors or etched in glass, key scriptures that reflect the intent of an area of the building, such as “Out of the mouths of infants and children God has ordained praise” or “My house shall be a house of prayer.” Jesus uses light and water as such powerful metaphors of His saving work—let’s follow His lead.
- LANDSCAPING: Dozens of times I’ve seen churches spend every penny on a facility only to leave the land around it—the one thing the thousands they hope to reach actually see as they pass by—a desolation. Let’s plan for beauty in our setting, a beauty that is our first invitation to come and see what is inside. For years I’ve watched upscale developers preparing a new community they hope will attract hundreds of people. The first thing they do is pay close attention to their entrance through lovely landscaping and a visible model of their ideal product. Our entrance should be our first, highly attractive invitation, drawing in every person who passes by. We could have this in place well ahead of our building.
Four Guiding Principles:
- BEAUTY: In a culture that increasingly believes everything is random chance with no ultimate design or meaning, we proclaim a Creator who loves beauty; and says He can be known by what is seen (Romans 1:20-21). Beauty demands attention to details. It also opens up a venue for involvement by lots of creative people when we reach the final landscape and interior decoration stage—people who, if given a defined piece of the task [the decoration of a room within defined and consistent parameters], subject to a final team approval, will stretch their artistic skills and help create beauty as their gift.
- QUALITY: The pole-barn shell facility may be a quick and easy way to get a building, but it is no gift to our children. Quality pays for itself over time. If this facility is a lasting gift to those who come after, we will need to pay more now, build well and then reap the benefits for decades. Whatever we build should reflect the fact that excellence honors God and inspires people—and it stands the test of time.
- SIMPLICITY: In a world where millions are starving, we must balance a clear witness to God’s beauty with an avoidance of the ostentatious and superfluous. Our facility is not our goal, but the launching pad for achieving our goal of reaching as many as possible. Simplicity does not mean Spartan or cheap, it means being clear about what we need in structural space and design; and then doing nothing more simply to impress.
- UTILITY: I have seen church layouts that were clearly designed without much thought to flow of people or maximum utilization of every area. Our goal should be to make this church a place that is highly user-friendly and where there is little or no space that is used only once a week for a few hours. I would rather have a beehive of constant activity in a tighter space than a mausoleum of occasional occupancy. To put that practically, we may be able to build a 38,000 square foot facility where rooms have multiple purposes (planning for far more carpet cleaning and maintenance) and saves millions over a 45,000 square foot facility with seldom used rooms.
Much Love,
Richard
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