Wow that felt good…for a second!
Two years ago, we sold our house of 28 years and, for the first time in our lives, were debt-free! Wow, that felt good! Of course, we turned around and bought our fixer-upper dream home and are back to chipping away at a mortgage. (Aggressively, by the way! Dave Ramsey would be proud.) But for 18 months we got a taste of the kind of freedom that comes from not having a mortgage.
That is the dream we have for Chapel Hill…the freedom that we will have to invest mortgage payments into ministries, leaders and disciple-makers. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad we made an investment in our campus; in a “base-camp” from which we could launch our members into ministry beyond these walls. But wow, will it feel good when, in about two years, we have paid off the last of our three mortgages and given us the margin to do some really exciting things.
This weekend in our worship services, we will celebrate being one-third of the way there. If you were in worship last weekend you received a new commitment card for our ongoing Beyond These Walls initiative. On it we invite you to affirm or revise your commitment you made last summer, and if you didn’t make a commitment because you weren’t yet a part of the Chapel Hill family or for any other reason, you may also indicate your new commitment on the card. We’ll have more cards available for you this weekend just in case you can’t locate the one you already received. At the conclusion of the service we will all have a chance to bring our cards to the front to lay them before the Lord. If you aren’t able to attend worship this weekend because you’re traveling, we even have an electronic version of the commitment card here.
Also…we are bringing down the FIRE! In every service, we are going to burn a “mortgage” to celebrate God’s faithfulness and your generosity. It will be a time of fun and unpredictable whimsy…I don’t think you want to miss it. (You might even end up as one of the flame-throwers!)
This truly is a milestone to be celebrated. I look forward to sharing it with you.
Pastor Mark