First, if you've been to more than one workday, you already know this project has involved many from our church family (Core Value 1). In fact, everyone is welcomed and encouraged to help. Don't minimize the value of this! Many, if not a majority, of people in a church aren't gifted to teach, lead worship, evangelize, etc. But they are gifted servants, with God-given skills, health and energy. If they can serve the Lord with a hammer, their service is no less valuable or honoring to the Lord. Our renovation enables anyone and everyone to "be involved" in the eternal work of the Church.
 
Second, as volunteers work together on this project, relationships are nourished. The primary ingredient in building relationships is time. Renovation takes time, time together with other church members. If you don't feel like you're part of our church family, let me invite you to spend a few weeks working with us! You'll foster relationships you'll carry with you into eternity!
 
Finally, our goal with the renovation is not a nice room and nice kitchen. Our goal is to minister to families, children, youth; to nurture spiritual relationships. We need a place for that. By making a comfortable space where we can fellowship and learn we have created a "garden-space" dedicated to a spiritual harvest. This will be one place where we always will be able to pray, study God's Word, fellowship and testify to God's goodness. In other words, this is place dedicated to activities that have eternal significance.
 
I began this article by making the statement that "Ultimately, the Church is the mechanism Jesus invented for human beings to touch eternity." This is a theme I hope to develop in the coming weeks.
 
No one expects our building project to result in some timeless structure to rival Rome's Coliseum. In fact, I think most of us consider it a short-term solution - we're hoping our church will quickly outgrow the facilities. However, I hope everyone considers the work to have an eternal significance.  I know I do.