Entering the Throne Zone

We spent the entire day with our architect, Tom Smith. We met with a variety of staff and ministry leaders as we continued working on the master planning process. Tom Amosson and Gordon Parker from Rinderknecht Associates joined us for the entire day in order to get up to speed with our project. You can click on the picture above to see a slide show regarding some of our planning sessions.

This evening we had another session with our Relocation Team, reviewing the progress that has been made to date and refining our time line. During our evening session we presented Tom Smith with one of our "Team Hats." I was reminded again today regarding what a great team God has assembled for this project.

We have now reached what our architect calls the 'groan zone." The "groan zone" is where your wants exceed what you can afford to build and you have to make the hard decisions regarding what to defer to a later phase. We have decided to call this the "throne zone" phase. That is, we are asking God to give our builder, architect and Relocation Team wisdom regarding what He wants us to build and what we can afford. This is not just about bricks and mortar, it's a spiritual endeavor. And it requires supernatural wisdom.

Please pray for this process. For Tom Smith, our architect as he puts his pencil to the paper in an effort to reduce the square footage of the facility. For Gordon Parker as he begins to do cost estimating and value engineering in several months. For our staff and ministry leaders as they do program planning and meet with the architect to do needs assessment. And for our Relocation Team as they set priorities and make important decisions regarding the recommended size and scope of this project.

We have entered an important phase of our relocation project. During the next several months vision and reality will brought together into a phased master plan that will be presented to our entire church family. We are now entering the throne zone.