A Celebration

This is an exciting time to be a part of the life of The Porch.

(Okay, it's history lesson time).
The Porch came into being a little over 6 years ago. In the Christian & Missionary Alliance (CMA) denomination, when a new church begins it is known as a "Church Plant". As time passed we went from meeting monthly, to weekly, to purchasing our own building and settling down in this lovely neighborhood we call West Central. We've been in the neighborhood for about 4 years now.

The last few months we've been going through the process with the denomination of becoming an "Established Church" (as opposed to a "Church Plant"). It's kind of like graduating from high school - first we were a little plant, not quite ready to do everything on our own so the District CMA office "parented" us; now we're graduated and told "you're adults, take control of your life and future, you're ready and able".

To mark this change in our church status, a few Sundays ago our friend Randy from the District office came to visit. We made a celebration out of it - a light, homemade meal (thank you Badria & Linda!), a different worship set up, a friend visiting to talk with us about Global Neighborhood (look forward to a post all about them soon), and such. It all culminated with Dave and Randy sitting in front of the gathering, walking us through the details. Then Randy took a moment to ask us to solemnly consider this a planting a stake in the ground moment - that from here on out things are different.

This whole service was extremely moving for me. Daily I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have this beautiful opportunity to live in this neighborhood, working with people I know and love, serving in the name of Christ. But this gathering was even more for me - it was a very real moment - a moment where you can feel God's hand moving, guiding our paths and plans. And I was so grateful to be a part of it. While changing status with the denomination doesn't really change anything about the way the people in The Porch function, it is still a pretty amazing deal.

Like I said, it's an exciting time the be a part of the life of The Porch, and I couldn't be more grateful to be a part of it.