In recent years I’ve become somewhat suspect of churches building newer and bigger buildings. I see the hungry and the poor and think about what a million dollars would do in a place like Mindanao or Albania or Tibet or Cameroon and don’t understand why one local church in America needs to spend millions on the place where they gather a couple of hours a week to sing songs and hear announcements and a sermonette. At the same time, there are genuine needs for buildings and as an organization or company or church grows, sometimes there space needs do as well. And, as they pray and seek God’s direction, He may well lead them to build, to rent bigger, to buy, or to spin off part of their ministry to another location. If God is directing it, there really are no worries. He has plenty in His pocket to take care of us all.
The King’s Lodge is preparing to add on to its existing facilities. We have a three-story manor house and a couple of separate staff housing buildings on our spacious grounds. We have as many as 180 or so people living on the base at times. Many of these eat together and we all worship together from time to time. We also have a great number of classes going on at any one time. The end result of all of this is that we send people all over the world to share the gospel of the Kingdom, the good news of Jesus Christ. In just the past 12 months I can think of people going and coming from Tanzania, Albania, China, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, Bosnia, South Africa, Thailand, and I am sure there are others. Additionally, a vibrant youth ministry is headquarted here in King’s Kids England. And, local ministries and churches are free to use our facilities as they are available.
What this all means is that our three classrooms aren’t enough; we need at least four. Moreover, our only meeting room will not hold everyone for worship and we want to build a meeting room that will hold 200 people. Finally, our maintenance facilities are in the main building, which is noisy, dirty, and provides some safety concerns, and we plan to build a stand alone maintenance workshop, which will free up space in the main building to add on much needed hospitality suites so that we can house more visitors (including even you) and teachers.
I currently am the staff member working on trying to make this happen by finding grants for such projects, writing to raise funds, and finding volunteers to help with their expertise. It’s quite interesting doing this in another culture. One of the exciting things that has happened has been that another non-profit group from Montana in the U.S., Mission Builders International, has volunteered their assistance. They have developed a website page (click on the words “website page”) dedicated to our project and from that page you can find out about volunteering your handyman expertise for many renovation projects that will pave the way for us to add the new large meeting room. Please check it out.
And, if you have a few spare thousands (or more or less) lying around, let me know and I can tell you how you can give. Now, I know that none of us ever feel that we have spare change, but remember that God is your supply and when He says give, you will always have enough, no matter what Mammon wants you to believe. If you are in the US, you can give so that it is tax deductible.
Pray for us as we undertake this difficult project, most importantly that we will follow His direction to the letter – like Noah did when building the ark.
