Deciding to Find a Way

            In my sermon Sunday, I talked about how we are called to be adventurers for Jesus.  There are times when we’d like to take the easy way out, but Jesus did not come here to tell us to do things the easy way.  Jesus tells us we need to be willing to take risks to spread God’s love and God’s word to people.

            Sunday, at our church conference, the people of the Gettysburg church voted to take a risk.  We voted to sell the Christian education building and instead build an addition onto the existing church building.

            Now, the sale is not final yet, and it probably won’t be for a few months.  Still, even if it would somehow fall through, that would not detract from the fact that the people of the Gettysburg church are willing to take a risk to further the mission of the church.  Assuming the sale goes through, there will be much work to do.  We will need to decide what it is, exactly, that we want to build.  We will need to find space for the Sunday school classes and for my office in the interval between when the building is sold and when the addition is built.  We will need to figure out how we are going to pay for what we’re going to build because, while the sale of the Christian education building will give us a good start toward an addition, it will not be enough to pay for it entirely.  There are many decisions that need to be made, and there will be fundraising that will need to be done.

            The thing is, though, that we made this decision knowing all that.  Things may come up that we didn’t expect—it seems like they always do—but, for the most part, the issues have been thought through.  We may not know the exact amount of money we’ll spend, but we have, in Jesus’ words, counted the cost.  We know this addition is not going to happen by itself.  We know we have work to do to make it happen.

            The good news is that, by voting the way they did, the people of the Gettysburg church said they are determined to make it happen.  That means they have agreed to do the work and make the decisions necessary to make their decision a success.  That’s have the battle right there.  I’m reminded of an old saying:  if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.  The people of the Gettysburg church have decided that there are going to find a way.

            It won’t be easy, but most things worth doing aren’t easy.  If we all work together, and remember that we are working for the glory of God, we can get it done.  Not only can we get it done, we will get it done.  We are taking a risk to spread the gospel, and I believe God will reward us for it.