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Weekly Update from the Senior Pastor
March 30, 2006 
Dear Family and Friends,
Great apologies for 48 hours of silence after the big event. In scheduling this week I neglected to reserve time on Tuesday and Wednesday after the signing to get an Update done. Here is the quick take.
The land is ours!
We met at 10:00 a.m. at the law offices of Miles and Stockbridge in Frederick ; and our lawyer, Greg Burgee and his assistant, Tracy, conducted the meeting. Debbie Lawrence , Mike Schuchardt and I represented Damascus Road . Lavinia and Truman (who just celebrated his 79 th birthday) Kelley were both present and their lawyer, Mr. Tim Horman. At first, the Kelleys seemed a bit tense, but that changed as we signed the documents (Greg told us it is very typical for people who farm and love the land to sell any piece of it). By the end of the meeting there was a great deal of sharing, laughing and cordiality by everyone. There was no hitch. The deal is done!
And while we are definitely leaner at the bank today, there are no LIENS! We have a great challenge ahead of us, but no debt behind us, a great team assembled, a great mission for Jesus—building homes of light here and around the world—and now we have a great location to build home base for our future.
This calls for a celebration! All you sanctified party-animals, get ready to step up.
Spring is here and we’ll begin exploring the logistics of parking and meeting on the land for a party. We also need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves in terms of our overall plans. Natural instinct is to share the good news in every venue we can and plan very visible events and markers on the land pointing toward our new campus. Yet in light of the opposition encountered by Derwood Bible Church , our Development Team is asking that we plan a strategy of release that includes careful communication with the neighbors around us and with the County. We’ll hammer this out as a Development Team next Monday evening. That does not mean you need to go silent on sharing this big step into our future with your friends, nor does it mean we won’t plan a new land/next step, visioning and praying party; just that we need to consider what information and the timing of everything we put in print or into the ground at our site until key steps in the process have been taken.
Another great development: Fairfax Community Church .
Yesterday as an entire staff we took a “field trip” to Fairfax Community Church on Braddock Road near George Mason University (a very pumped campus right now). The week before, Mark Schaeffer, our Project Manager, had taken Debbie and I there, because he felt it fit with the elements I had shared with the Dev Team—and it is a 45,000 square foot facility (slightly bigger than what we’ve talked about). Mark was right, I felt like John Denver going home to a place I’d never been. The use of light and water in their large, inviting atrium; the quality, beauty and simplicity of construction, the design of the worship center, their children’s and youth ministry areas and even their internet wired, open café/lounge/resource area for informal gatherings, it all invited community-building and worship. Their campus setting is wooded and allowed us to picture something similar on our land.
So I wondered how the staff would respond as we went yesterday. They all loved it, not in the sense of replicating every detail, but as a general vision of the kind of facility that would fit our dream for a lighthouse center to fulfill our mission. If you can visit this church facility—please do! It definitely provides a tangible reference or starting point for our planning. The other fun thing about their story is that they were an 80-year old congregation stuck for many years at just around 500 in a bad facility. But the congregation really rallied (that is a definite hint) and moved out in faith; and during the building process and in the year since moving into this facility their attendance has gone to 1100. That was God’s plan for them. What is His plan for us? Remember Mary’s advice: “Whatever He tells you to do—do it!”
This Sunday I get to talk about Jehovah-Tsidkenu: The Lord our Righteousness. That name is the best news on the planet and our ticket into purpose now and life in eternity. I’ll see you then.
Lots of love,
Richard
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