From the Pastor’s Desk (71)
There is a very strong possibility that our church will purchase 20 acres of land on Hammerly and Brittmore as our church site for the future. In order to decide on this, we will have an emergency New Life family meeting on Sunday, October 6 at 2PM in the Lounge. This may come as a surprise to many of you. So, let me share with you how this came about.
This past February, I had a strong sense and desire from God that we should look for and purchase at least 20 acres of land near I-10 and Beltway 8. Both New Life and the Korean congregation were growing and we were experiencing parking lot shortage on Sundays quite frequently. Although the Korean congregation was praying for the land next to ours, which is about 3.5 acres, I felt that it was not going to be enough to solve the problem and meet our needs for the long haul. Besides, the land was not available for sale. Therefore, I asked a couple of New Life members to look for all the properties near I-10 and Beltway 8, the place where I felt God was directing my attention to.
Having done their homework, these two people reported back to me saying that there is no 20 acres of land that is available in that location. I was somewhat disappointed because I had so strongly sensed God’s prompting in my heart, which does not happen too often in my life. However, something in my heart said to me that it will show up and I just had to keep looking. Several weeks later, these faithful brothers came back to me saying that they have located some properties at different locations, but I just knew that they were not the right ones and had to tell them so. I started to feel really bad turning down what this one brother had worked so hard to help find but weren’t right.
Realizing that we need to do something with our facilities due to our church’s rapid growth, Pastor Chai formed a Long Range Planning Committee in July, which is made up of three pastors, Pastor Chai, Mrs. Seo and myself and four lay leaders from the Korean congregation. During the first meeting we shared about our church’s current situation and space needs that we have. We, then, decided to come together for the second time with our growth projection for the next five and ten years so we could plan and prepare for the future. At this point, no one from the committee had thought about purchasing a large piece of land and relocating our church.
In the meantime, I received a call from this brother who told me that there is 20 acres of land on Hammerly and Brittmore and he thought it would be around 4 to 5 million dollars. I thought the price was pretty high but was very excited because of the location. That was very close to where I felt like God was leading me to. During the second committee meeting, therefore, I shared with them what has been on my heart for the past six months. Instead of building any more on the current property, we could purchase this land and relocate our church. They were all shocked and shared with me why it was unrealistic to buy and relocate our church. They did not take me seriously. Once again, I was discouraged.
Then, something very strange took place on Tuesday, August 13. It was two days after we had dedicated our $100,000 offering to God and had given it to OCI (Overseas Council International) for the purpose of helping and rebuilding TECT (The Evangelical College of Theology), a solid evangelical seminary in Sierra Leone. This brother who has been helping me in this matter called me and shared with me that this same land on Hammerly and Brittmore is on sale for $1,500,000! The price was extremely reasonable and affordable. I was shocked and stunned. It truly was a God-moment!
I approached Pastor Chai with this news and got the permission from him to call the emergency meeting. After I presented the information, many of the committee members became very excited and we agreed to take two weeks to pray and seek God and then decide.
On Wednesday, 9/18, the Long Range Planning Committee had gathered together, shared and discussed some more and then decided that we are going to move forward in purchasing this land and relocating our church in the future! I was very impressed with the senior leadership of our Korean congregation. Even though this huge idea of relocating our church came from me who is much younger than all of them, when the idea made sense to them, they took it seriously, prayerfully approached it and then made the unanimous decision! What a fantastic group of open-minded God-honoring leaders! My hat goes off to them! The Korean congregation will take some time to present the committee’s decision to their members and I am presenting it to New Life in the form of this letter.
Why did I sense that God was leading us to relocate our church? First of all, our church is growing at a rate that in five years, the current facilities would not be able to accommodate all of us. Even if we were to add the land next to ours, it will not be enough. Therefore, it was inevitable that we move to some other place. Second of all, the area near I-10 and Beltway 8 is strategic and ideal because many of us could get to this place in less than 30 minutes. This will prove to be a tremendous help in reaching out to our neighbors and co-workers. Those, who would not think to drive 30 to 40 minutes to come to church, would consider coming if it is less than 30 minutes driving distance. Bringing our church to where people are instead of asking them to come to where we are just made sense to me!
I invite all the New Life members to our emergency family meeting on Sunday, 10/6 at 2PM in the Trailer House. It is the members’ responsibility as well as privilege to get involved in matters like this. I look forward to sharing with you some more on this.
Your pastor,
Eric
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