Church - The Way it Should Be

It has been a long time since I've been able to post. In part, because I've been finishing the transformation of a warehouse in Lexington, Kentucky into a hip, innovative worship space for Hope Springs Church (www.hopespringschurch.com).

This is a great church; church the way it should be. This church understands God's design for His people is to help those around us who are in need. They have a laundry ministry for homeless people, a place for them to get clean clothes, conversation, and biblical instruction. They have a bible study at a local McDonald's where homeless people are able to get two dollar menu items along with community and Biblical teaching. They have a Friday night Celebrate Recovery service where 100+ people meet to continue their journey to recovery through worship, small groups, and fellowship over a meal. They send vans out each Sunday morning to pick up homeless people, people living in local shelters, and people living in half-way houses and rehab facilities to bring them to church. They also have a Sunday morning coffee ministry at Rupp Arena (home of the Kentucky Basketball Wildcats) to the homeless. The pastor is often heard saying, "God send us the people other churches don't want."

And as if this wasn't enough, this church that "gets it" also has a Hispanic congregation (Fuente de Avivamiento) that meets on Sunday and Wednesday nights for worship and teaching, and several days throughout the week for prayer. This isn't a separate congregation that "uses" the Hope Springs buildings, this is a congregation of a different language, yes, but the leaders at Hope Springs (David Calhoun for the Anglo congregation and Iosmar Alvarez for the Hispanic congregation) make every effort to ensure this is one church.

And it showed as we started in late May to transform a second warehouse off Versailles Road and Angliana in Lexington, Kentucky into a great new worship space. To see details of the transformation, where they were to where they are now, check out the post by my partner in this journey, Matt E. Cooper of Bargeheights. His post (http://bargeheights.com/?p=577) shows what the space was and what the new space looked like opening Sunday. Over the two plus months, members from both congregations worked side-by-side, often 10 to 12 hours a day, to make this dream a reality. As we sat together around midnight on the Saturday before the opening, I told the team that in the morning, this won't simply be a building, it will be your church. All your hard work will pay off as you stand up for the first time in this space to worship the King for whom we have all given so many hours this summer.

Sure, there is a lot left; we have the old space to transform into a new kids / youth space along with a college-age coffee house in one section. We have an additional 1,000 square feet that will become the new office wing. But I know one thing: this team of volunteers that loves Jesus enough to "get their hands dirty" with laundry ministries, homeless bible studies at McDonald's, coffee ministries at the place so many associate with basketball greatness but have no idea of the great needs that are right under their noses as they walk into the game, and understand that we serve one God regardless of skin color, language, or past sins will be able to accomplish this task. They have already won, they took an old warehouse and they turned it into a wonderful new worship center in just a few short months.