I am sitting here trying to wrap my mind around the past eight years…it’s been an incredible journey. I am both overwhelmed with gratitude AND excitement…gratitude because Jesus is allowing me to be involved…and excitement because Philippians 1:6 and Ephesians 3:20 keep screaming to me, “The best is yet to come!”
- Thinking about the past eight years I can distinctly remember…
- Our very first worship service on January 16th of 2000…we opened with the song, “One Of These Days,” by FFH.
- The next two Sunday mornings we had major ice storms…one completely knocked the power out on the campus of Anderson University—yet we still had church.
- Our first month we took in a total of $2,100…we were SO broke!!!
- Knowing that we were supposed to hire Lee and being scared to death because we didn’t have the money…but being even more scared of disobeying God. His first official Sunday was Mother’s Day of 2000…and hiring him was one of the BEST decisions I’ve ever made. (Love you bro!)
- Going to two services within six months…and “dreaming” that one day we could meet in the 1,100 seat Fine Arts Center on the campus of AU…and “maybe” fill it up for “special occasions.”
- Moving to the FAC in August of 2001…and going from 188 one week to around 350 the next.
- Taking up the offering to move to the FAC…we needed $45,000…so I went before our church and preaching a message on giving…and 53 people gave $26,000…which was AWESOME…but we still needed another $20,000…so we went to the bank and borrowed it…and I didn’t sleep for a week!
- Freaking out when we rented our first office space because it was going to cost a whopping $750 a month…I thought I had bankrupted the church.
- Getting in the offices and realizing we had NOTHING…no phones, computers—not even a flippin’ stapler! I went in front of the church and put our needs out there…and we had everything we needed in two weeks.
- August of 2002—going from 504 to 1,600 in six weeks…having to begin two services in a place that we didn’t even expect to fill up once…and being scared to death because I KNEW I was WAY over my head. (I still feel that way.)
- Adding a third service in 2003…and then a fourth service in 2004…and being blown away and what God was doing…we grew to over 4,000 without a building…we had a box truck and tons of trailers!!!
- Locating land in 2004 and doing our first capital campaign…we titled it, “Dare You To Move.” Once again, I was scared to death for us to commit to buy land and build a building…but I was more terrified of what would happen if we looked God in the face and told Him that He was too small to make HIS name famous.
- Nearly dying in 2005…and God reminding me of how unnecessary I was—that the church is HIS…it was on this earth WAY before I got here…and when I pass away one day it will still be here!!!
- Sitting on the stage of the building in January of 2006, looking out at 2,500 seats and crying because I was scared that no one was going to come once we opened the new facility.
- Baptizing over 400 people in the fall of 2006.
- Doing our marriage series entitled, “Lord of the Rings,” in the fall of 2006…and seeing God save marriages!
- Adding a fourth service in January of 2007.
- The Illuminate campaign…where we saw nearly 1,000 people come to Christ in one month.
- The tailgating baptism where we saw over 500 people baptized in one day! (I still dream of the day when we see 3,000 in one day! If it happened in Acts 2:41…it can happen here!)
- Our church pledging $14.3 million dollars for our Gametime campaign to build a new children’s building, youth building, Greenville campus and local and foreign missions.
I could go on and on…God has done an amazing work…I still can’t believe it…and as I have already said, our best days are yet to come!!!