March 08 - Church Needs a House

For nearly 6 months, I drove past this house. It is right off of Swiss Ave, near Fitzugh Ave in Lakewood. There were several, pavlovian reactions when I saw this house. First, I drooled. Then, I prayed. Then, I begged God. Then, I drooled some more.

We needed a larger house to facilitate what we wanted to do. First, we needed a house where we could begin ministering to the neighborhood as a church. We needed a place to hold meetings, house parties, dinners, etc.

Also, over the year, our group developed a unique model for small groups (at least to us). We learned that there were many good reasons to have a large small group. From sharing resources, to having a good group of friends, to service projects, and on and on, we knew we enjoyed a larger group. But, it was very difficult to share openly on a Wednesday night because of the size. Therefore, we started the night with a short time of teaching, and then broke up into core groups of 5 to 7. And it worked! We were able to enjoy a short time of teaching where the members could get direction and clarification on the Word, then break up into core groups, and share in a more intimate setting, how the Word applied in our own individual story. But, in order to have core groups, we needed break out rooms. A house with several big rooms was more suitable to our needs.

Now, why this house in particular? Well, i had a buddy by the name of Kevin Spurgin who was also planting a church in the area. He used the exact same house as an exchange for service. He got the house at a discounted rate for $750 a month, but it stayed on the market to sell. Kevin lived in the house for a year, and it had never sold. Recently, he moved out, and I knew it was available again. So, at the end of February, I asked if I could get the owner's contact information. Long story short, the owners were very interested.

Now, all I had to do was raise support!

We were living on Jenny's paycheck so that I could church plant. And I'm sure you can imagine how much a private Christian University is able to pay. So, I began the hard but good work of asking people to partner with me in funding for the house. Some people in the group stepped up, and a very generous businessman offered to match what I raised from within the group. Within a couple of weeks, I was able to raise enough money to cover the house and utilities.

Big praise to God!!

We moved in to our new home at 4805 Swiss Ave on March 22nd, 2008.

Now, it wasn't that easy. All of a sudden, I had a 2300 square foot house that I needed to fill with furniture. Even before we moved into the house, I started collecting free furniture off of Craig's list. If you have never heard of Craig's List, or their free furniture site, then you have to check it out! I was able to fill up 2/3 of the house with free furniture by the time we moved in http://www.dallas.craigslist.org/zip/.

We had our first meeting on the 26th. (All of the furniture in the pic is Craig's List!)

The deal was simple. We got a beautiful, Swiss Ave house on the cheap, and they could keep it on the market. We could only hope that it wouldn't sell. Unfortunately, in April, that's exactly what happened.