What Massive Stones You Have (Mark 13)

I'm not a total church building hater, I think they are over-rated - however, in our cold climate it's nice having a place where we can gather. I'm one of the, "Whatever it takes to advance the kingdom" kind of guys. If a church building really is the path to help the most possible people know God, then I'm in favor of a church building. But at the same time it's impossible for me to justify spending millions of dollars churches on buildings.

In Mark 13 (Mark 13) as the disciples point out the amazing "church" buildings to Jesus, it's easy for me to imagine modern day church goers giving Jesus a tour of their architectural feats and saying, "Look Jesus, what massive stones." (Awkward pause!) "What magnificent buildings."

And Jesus would scoff and start talking about how the end is coming, and these buildings will be turned to rubble, but will people be ready for His return? And then someone will probably say, "But, don't you know how much I gave to that freakin' building campaign!?"

At OCC, we had plans to build a nice building out in the country.

• The drawings look real nice.
• The property was nice.
• It was away from anything to do with the city.

And so, we are selling the land (part has already been sold.)

No, we are not giving up on the idea of a building. But we have rethought what a building is for. So, we are in the process of puchasing an unused 4-plex movie theatre in the core of the city.
We are reusng & repurposing an existing building.

• We are in the centre of the city.
• We are in a needy section of town.
• We are linking with other ministries in town.
• We will have a non-churchy look.
• We want to be a place that is used for the church... the community... the kingdom.
  

More later