By: Albert
I’m sure it means something to you if you have been part of ETCBC at some point within the last 4 years. From conception to the current construction midpoint, our building project has involved many volunteer hours, meetings, and votes. Whether you’ve been a distant bystander or a committee member, I’m sure it would have been difficult to ignore thinking at some point about what this project means for not only our community, but our faith.
For myself, I remember my initial reaction to spending over a million dollars on our building was that this was unnecessary. I had grown fond of boasting to others that my faith community meets in a humble warehouse. Phrases like “The church is the people, not the building!”, or “We must invest outside our 4 walls!” were commonplace as I explained to others why I love my ET. Admittedly, I would look down on large megachurches investing in millions on their own building in a world where people are still starving for food and clean water. It didn’t make sense to me in how you further the Kingdom of God on a global scale. You could only imagine my concern when we actually voted to go forward with this project.
Because of my vocational background in engineering, I was asked to help out the project committee in a few tasks during the design phase. But I never got over the fact that I felt this whole project wasn’t worth it. Without going into the details of the many obstacles ETCBC faced in project management, design, and construction; I remember I would secretly feel vindicated any time something went wrong. “We shouldn’t even be doing this in the first place!”, I would often think to myself.
In hindsight, it’s easy to see how unhelpful of an attitude this was. Not only was this of no service to the project, this damaged the enthusiasm and prayers that this project needed. It wasn’t until recently where I’ve been asked to be involved again with the project, that I was forced to reflect upon all of the above. The key brokenness here was that I simply had not accepted the discernment of the majority at ETCBC over my own. While I’m still free to disagree, I did not accept or respect that others may have also carefully considered what furthering God’s Kingdom looks like, and still chose yes to Nehemiah! Realizing this finally helped free me up to focus genuinely on the future and how we grow from this point forward.
Whether you care a lot or a little about Nehemiah, I hope you are able to fully embrace this project as part of not only how you can grow in the community, but how you grow in your relationship with Christ.