We’re 12!  I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around all that God has done in these past 12 years.  He has poured out His blessings, He has allowed us to experience deep loss, He has given us joy, He has walked us through pain….and He has been SO faithful to each of us.  It will always be my greatest joy to have followed this journey of starting a church with our incredible team and watching God do a profound work in our lives.  Pastors out there – It’s never about the numbers…it’s MUCH bigger than that.  It’s about Him completing a work He started in us and molding us to be the best image of Jesus we can be.  Let go of the status quo and allow God to steer the ship….His ways are greater than our ways and His plans are higher than our plans.

Thank you to each of you who have been a part of our story, either currently or in the past.  We love this church, we love our people, and we love our Jesus.  More great things are in store for North Creek…and I’m sure some challenges as well.  But that is the beauty of the church….walking through life with Him and each other!

And we celebrated with a new building filled with those amazing people.  Here’s some before and after pictures we showed this morning.  Everyone come next week to see it in person!  Service time changes to 9:30 am HEARING service and 11:00 am DEAF service.  Come early, stay late!

 

On September 13, 2015 God spoke to my heart during a prayer meeting with our staff team.  He gave me this word for our church:

 

My Children, My Little Children

I am going ahead of you.

There are mountains in front of you.

Many mountains.

Do you see them?

But I am moving the mountains.

Do you see me?

I am moving the mountains before you.

 

I emailed those words to our team the next day, not knowing that the mountains that were looming before us were the most daunting things I could ever have imagined.  If you had told me that night what that group of people was about to face together, I am not sure how we would have handled it.  I am not sure that I, as one of their leaders, could have even asked them to handle it.

But our God is gracious and there were many times along the way that He reminded me of the words He had given us.  He knew the mountains were before us, but so was He.

And for those brave souls who will see a God-story through to the end, the reward is always sweet…

Today, precisely 3 years later on September 13, 2018, we got our occupancy permit for our building.  A building that was our first rented home nearly a decade ago and now is ours forever.  A building that symbolizes for our church a story of hope, redemption, and anointing.  The journey was never about a building, but I believe God gave it to us as a gift for trusting Him when the earth was shaking.

Tonight the very tired bodies of our team stood there as teenagers flooded in the doors for their first service in a building that has a million of our beautiful memories wrapped into it’s walls. They laughed, they worshipped, and they enjoyed their church…

And all the mountains that seemed totally impossible along the way suddenly seemed to disappear.  We are home.