Big New Buildings

 When I first moved here I enjoyed the old building. It was quaint. It felt lived in. It needed some renovations. But it felt like a church for real people. Now that we are in the new conference center our church feels more like an institution than a home. It's like going to church in a museum. It feels sterile.

I have felt this before. When Prescott moved out by the airport it was still pastor Mitchell's vision and it was a building that felt familiar. Once we were moved into the conference center it felt too perfect, and too new, and too sterile. It felt more like a magazine picture than a place where people could feel at home and feel secure and feel like what they did mattered.

The world is filled with cathedrals where no one worships anymore. Some have a handful of old people who can't let it go but can't keep it either. Buildings that once housed revival or at least housed large congregations now are relics of bygone eras in church history.

We as a Fellowship feel like we need bigger buildings to entice God to move again like He did in years gone by. For a fraction of what our new building cost we could have renovated our old building inside and out. Instead our old building is up for sale. Twenty years of memories cast aside just for the sake of holding conference under our own roof occasionally.

Everyone who visits our church loves our new big building. Those of us who worship there three times a week do not love it as much as y'all do. We do our best to make it work. We trust our pastors to do the right thing for us.

One final word. If you build it, they will come, only works in movies. It rarely works in real life.