It is a faith-building blast to find myself in very serious discussions about opening our church in Washington Square Mall.  Our trustees gathered last night to discuss it again.  The consensus has been that the idea makes sense.  Beginning years ago, I remember asking God to do a work in our church where something like Washington Square Mall made sense.  That’s what I am still praying.   And, honestly, my prayer has been that we, as a church would grow so much, moving to the mall was and obvious,  matter of fact solution.  All that seems to be happening now.  It’s fun to watch a prayer enter the “seen” realm.

However, I feel the constant reminder all around me to make sure life doesn’t become about a building, or worse, that we don’t wait for a building to start doing what we’re really supposed to do.  It’s easy to fall into an “if only. . . then” mentality.   “If we only had that building THEN- we could really accomplish great things… “.  That’s a mistake.  God can use us and DOES use us – right NOW.  Our current facility is far nicer than many, many churches have ever thought about having.  I watched amazing, “dreams come true” type stuff happen just this past Sunday.

That’s why, mall or no mall, we have to make sure we stay on the course.   Part of the course continues to be: Process.  As a church, we have an assignment known as the Great Commission:  Go, make, baptize, teach. . . etc.  We are currently in the process of asking ourselves:  what if we were sent to this community to plant a church and fulfill the Great Commission from somewhere else?  What would we do?  How would we reach out with
 intentional effort?

That has to be our mentality in discussing the Mall.  The Mall is all about the mission.  The missional process starts with getting to know the place we’re in –then, finding out what need God would have us meet.  After that, we invite them in, love them, make the case to them and make disciples.

We’re currently in survey and study time.  Please take it seriously and ask your unchurched friend, neighbor, co-worker, whoever you can talk to tell you what they think about why people don’t go to church and what people’s needs are.  The more I do it the more my heart aches with a purpose to reach people, not just buy a mall.  I find myself gaining clarity about what really matters.  God’s glory matters, intentionally obeying the Great Commission matters.  The Mall needs to rise up out of our pursuit of those things.