Our Last Sunday at Lipscomb
Time is a mystery. On one hand it seems that our church has been together for decades; so many lives, so many stories - far too much love and laughter, way too many tears and heartbreaks to possibly compress into five and a half years. And yet on the other hand it feels like just a few months ago that 129 of us gathered in the cafeteria at Lipscomb Elementary for our first service.
(I just took a couple minute break between paragraphs because my dad texted me to say that forty one years ago tonight he rushed his, then, twenty-year-old wife to Pekin (Illinois) Memorial Hospital. Within two hours she gave me life and my dad his second boy. In his text, he described seeing me for the first time and said it seemed like only yesterday:) As I was saying... time is indeed a mystery.)
Back to Tennessee and this Sunday. Of the 1500 or so folk who call GracePointe home, less than a hundred of you were there that first service; the rest have been added in one of our 290 Sundays since that first one. The paths to GracePointe have been many and the stories of what this Christ-honoring community has meant to those who have found it fill my heart with more gratitude than I can convey.
Nancy and I have been so busy working alongside our incredible staff, doing whatever it takes to get us onto our new campus, that we really haven't had the time to stop and reflect on these past five years. I tend to be pretty sentimental, sometimes to the point of sappiness, so I predict Sunday might get to me a little. I promise I'll try not to be too maudlin:) The reality is a lot of special things have happened on Sundays at Lipscomb/GracePointe over the past five and a half years so it's reasonable to think there will be a good mix of laughter and tears in our final service there.
I hope everyone will try to be there this Lord's Day, not just for one last sit in those much maligned metal chairs, but to offer our thanks to God for bringing us together, for creating something really special from the humblest of beginnings, and for how God has used this "church in a box" to impact our lives.
See you Sunday,
Stan
(I just took a couple minute break between paragraphs because my dad texted me to say that forty one years ago tonight he rushed his, then, twenty-year-old wife to Pekin (Illinois) Memorial Hospital. Within two hours she gave me life and my dad his second boy. In his text, he described seeing me for the first time and said it seemed like only yesterday:) As I was saying... time is indeed a mystery.)
Back to Tennessee and this Sunday. Of the 1500 or so folk who call GracePointe home, less than a hundred of you were there that first service; the rest have been added in one of our 290 Sundays since that first one. The paths to GracePointe have been many and the stories of what this Christ-honoring community has meant to those who have found it fill my heart with more gratitude than I can convey.
Nancy and I have been so busy working alongside our incredible staff, doing whatever it takes to get us onto our new campus, that we really haven't had the time to stop and reflect on these past five years. I tend to be pretty sentimental, sometimes to the point of sappiness, so I predict Sunday might get to me a little. I promise I'll try not to be too maudlin:) The reality is a lot of special things have happened on Sundays at Lipscomb/GracePointe over the past five and a half years so it's reasonable to think there will be a good mix of laughter and tears in our final service there.
I hope everyone will try to be there this Lord's Day, not just for one last sit in those much maligned metal chairs, but to offer our thanks to God for bringing us together, for creating something really special from the humblest of beginnings, and for how God has used this "church in a box" to impact our lives.
See you Sunday,
Stan
posted by Clear Head Space | 9:44 PM
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