First Sunday in the New Building

Nehemiah 6:15–16 KJV (WS)

15 So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. 16 And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God.

Introduction

I wanted to go back to Nehemiah and cover a passage that we actually skipped over during our study of Nehemiah.

The wall is finished. vs 15

52 days after they had started, the Jews had completed the wall.

Do you remember how much their enemies made fun of them?

They said that if a fox ran up on the wall, the whole thing would fall down.

The enemies of Israel had done everything to try and stop their progress.

They had sent letters back to the king of Persia.

They had accused Nehemiah of wrong-doing.

They had even tried to lay traps for him.

But, the people had worked together to complete the project.

From the priests to the people that lived outside the city walls.

Everyone had pitched in to help.

They had given of their resources.

They had worked alongside their families.

They had worked alongside their leaders.

And now, there was a beautiful wall where once there had been only destruction and rubble.

You know that this day was more than 52 days in the making.

It took Nehemiah longer than that to travel from Persia to Jerusalem.

It was months of prayer in Persia before the king asked Nehemiah why he was sad.

Before that, his brother had spent time in Jerusalem.

This was more than just a 52 day project.

Can you imagine how they must have celebrated when the wall was finally done?

Can you imagine how much Nehemiah must have celebrated?

February 20, 2024 is when the dirt work started on our project.

It’s been 418 days of construction.

But, really this project started in June of 2022.

It was a Thursday night when the deacons and the trustees met with two different companies that we had narrowed our search to.

I had a favorite going into that meeting, but after interviewing both companies, it was clear which company we wanted to go with.

The officers recommended to the church that we work with Churches by Daniels, so we scheduled a time to have them come out and meet with the entire church.

After their presentation, lots of questions were asked and the church voted to confirm the recommendation of the officers.

For the rest of the year we worked to settle on a floor plan and a design that we liked.

There was a lot of back and forth.

There were a lot of decision to make.

There was a budget looming over all of our decisions.

After settling on a scope and a design, it was time to secure our funding.

We started 2023 by preparing to embark on our capital campaign.

As we started talking about how much money we needed to raise, there were multiple members who committed to give 6 figure donations.

This was a miraculous sign of God’s blessing on the project.

But, we always expected that we would still need to raise money through a loan.

So the search began.

We had lots of doors shut on us.

Bro. Mike Morgan and I went in to one meeting, and I was pretty confident.

It didn’t take two minutes for that confidence to be wiped away.

We kept looking.

Bro. Rich Flanary mentioned a friend of his who worked for Waters Edge that we should meet with.

So we did, and we hit it off right away.

In the end Waters Edge approved us for more than we asked for and more than we’ve ended up needing.

So, with financing secured we finished up the engineered drawings and waited for construction to start.

We had our groundbreaking on November 19, 2023

Just a few weeks before actual work started, myself, Jerry Schwartz, and Jimmy Short all went to Daniels office for what we thought would be the last meeting before construction started.

We sat down, and the $3.2 million dollar project had suddenly become a $4.5 million dollar project.

We were deflated.

This hurt worse than all those banks that had told us no.

Had I led the church in the wrong direction?

Was this not God’s will?

I told my wife when I got home that night that I was sure the church would fire me after this.

It was a Thursday so the next day being Friday, my day off, I did my best to try and occupy my mind.

Jerry and I had already started combing through the proposed budget to see where we could save money.

Chad called me the next day.

He apologized.

He encouraged me not to be discouraged.

Since we didn’t know if we could afford the project or not a stop-gap contract was proposed that would allow us to get started on the dirt work while we tried to figure the budget out.

This to me was one of the biggest steps of faith.

I want our church to trust me, I know that many of you have been let down by pastors, so have I.

I didn’t want to start the project if we couldn’t finish it.

We signed it, and February 20th work began and apart from rain, it never stopped.

Russel, over at Daniels, was able to make enough cuts to get us back down to the 3.2 mark.

It meant changing a lot of the finishes.

It meant keeping the cieling and not getting a new steeple.

It meant we would have to save money by doing the painting and laying the carpet ourselves.

Even then it was going to be a razor thin margin.

Of course, we got some help along the way.

More money came in on Catch-up Sunday.

People who didn’t make a commitment gave anyway.

David Wilson, our HVAC guy not only beat everyone else’s quote but then came in under budget.

Micaiah’s company also saved us 10’s of thousands of dollars on all of our cabinetry.

All of this meant that the project could move forward.

Who could forget the pit in front of the church, though?

We lost 9 week to rain.

When it finally did dry out and the foundation was poured, we were able to move construction inside.

That meant two things for our church.

We would start meeting in the gym.

To save money, we were going to handle all of the demolition.

Our first Sunday in the gym was August 18th.

That was 31 Sundays ago.

We had to set up and tear down the gym almost 31 times.

Paul and Benny were there almost every week.

Bro. Trevor and Bro. Tuttle were also there for most of the weeks that we did this.

Of course, the entire Sunday night crowd helped to tear it down every week, sometimes as fast as 15 minutes.

Demolition began on Monday, August 12.

We made such a mess.

But, we also had the highest involvement.

Adults old and young came out to help.

Almost no one was hurt besides Bro. Casey who got smacked in the face and Bro. Bo who smashed his hand on spike strip.

Teens and children were also involved tearing down walls.

I’ll never forget how many screws Emma and Kaylynn removed from the studs we removed so that we can reuse them in the children’s classes that we will soon begin building.

All the contractors were impressed by the speed and efficiency of our demolition crew.

As the demolition started to wind down, Daniels’ crews took over, and for several months we watched while they did their part of the job.

Since they were doing their part, we were able to keep doing what is the most important part of our job.

Evangelizing and Discipling.

We were able to continue ministering while over half of our building was unusable.

Nursery workers,

Children’s workers,

Awana,

Sunday School teachers,

LPP

Everyone was affected by the limited space.

We even continued hosting several community events.

I want to thank the parking lot crews who came out when we hosted the public school kids for the graduations and Christmas parties.

We stood in the rain directing traffic so that everyone could get in and out.

We stood out there on election day until it was dark outside making sure that everyone could get in to vote.

We had VBS without front doors!

All of our workers have gone above and beyond during this time.

You’ve been flexible.

You haven’t complained.

You’ve been faithful.

You didn’t quit.

Thank you.

Without a doubt, the last few months have been the hardest.

We had agreed to do the painting and the carpet, it was time for that to start.

If I don’t see another paintbrush for the rest of my life, that will be fine by me.

Every time you think you’ve got it all, you find another spot.

There are still spots that are bugging me that we will get back on next week.

It sure has been nice to have my father in law as a member of our church.

He’s come up and worked all day on Saturday every Saturday since they joined which was back in January.

I sure do appreciate that, and I am hopeful that he can get his Saturday’s back to rest.

Back in 2021, our carpet guy had told me he was getting too old and he wasn’t sure he would be able to help with the next carpet project.

I went ahead and asked anyways, and he agreed.

Bro. Tracy is so great to help us with the carpet and he has done a wonderful job directing us in getting it all done.

Last summer, another one of our most faithful helpers went through a horrible health ordeal.

Bro. Mike Schmauss’ back quite nearly drove him to his death.

You wouldn’t know it here lately as he has been up here a lot during the week.

He painted all of the cabinetry for us.

He worked with his son-in-law Micaiah to get the cabinets set.

When the wind blew the steeple over and cracked the tip off, he and Bro. Mike Morgan got to work repairing it.

And it is repaired and will soon be ready to go back on the roof.

Bro. Morgan spent many hours working on refurbishing the steeple.

When it does go back up, it will look brand new.

There have been so many people that have helped with this project all along the way.

I’m thankful for the ladies who have been involved throughout.

Mrs. Kathy cooked for the demo team every day they were up here.

Bro. Mike Kight was up here every week fixing sheetrock and other things that were outside of the contractors scope.

A whole host of our ladies have been at the church cleaning during the week these last several weeks.

Barbara Upchurch, Krista Nall, Vivian Baldwin, Indai Rowland, Kim Stockham, and Theresa Falling.

I’m thankful for the staff and the support they have been able to give.

Mrs. Tammy has kept track of contributions, handled the insurance for this, made sure the bills were paid, and kept up with out loan.

Bro. Matt has handled so much of the tech side of things.

Bro. Clarence is not afraid to jump in and do the heavy lifting.

Bro. Jessie, I don’t think, has ever argued with me or had an attitude when I’ve asked him to do something, he came back on staff at just the right time.

Bro. Jerry has walked this site with me more than anyone else on staff.

He’s helped keep things moving and kept people accountable.

He’s made sure our volunteers have the supplies they need.

He’s come in earlier than anyone else to get the crews started

He’s done all of the things that most other people didn’t want to do.

He’s answered a lot of your questions as we’ve gone through this.

I am thankful for my wife and my sons.

My sons have helped in many different ways throughout this project.

I hope they will look back on it with good memories

Alicia has been the most trustworthy support throughout this project.

She never complained about coming up here on my day off.

Whether it was just to check on the project…

Or whether it was to spend the day painting, cleaning, or laying carpet.

My wife teaches 40+ piano students, but when she wasn’t teaching she’s been helping me and I am so grateful.

If I’ve missed someone, I’m sorry.

If you’re annoyed that I did this, too bad, go read Nehemiah 3 and realize that he did the same thing.

Now, I’d like to say just a few things from the next verse in our passage.

The effect that this had on other people. vs 16

The enemies of Israel were cast down because they saw that the thing which had been done had been wrought by God.

Yes, there was a city full of people that labored and invested in the wall’s completion,

But, it was God who was responsible for the success of the project.

Throughout this project, I have promised God that we would give him all of the credit for what He has done.

Let’s do that now.

God has provided for our needs.

He has given us the strength and health that we needed throughout this project.

He has allowed there to be safety on this job site.

He has kept the delays to a minimum.

He brought the right people for us to work with.

He allowed some of our contractors to come in under budget.

He brought together each member of this church, who has contributed in some way.

He has allowed us to enjoy peace and unity as we worked together.

He brought new people to our family as we were displaced.

He is powerful.

He is gracious to us.

We are blessed beyond our understanding.

God has been so good to us.

I can’t wait to see how God is going to show His power to us next.