Celebrating the Journey: Reflections from Along the Way

By Jim McClure

Throughout the Old Testament as God led the nation of Israel, they would often stop and build an altar and reflect on His goodness and seek His wisdom for their future direction. So, as we anticipate the April 20th Dedication Sunday, it is good to reflect on Central's journey and the altars that have been built along the way.

This building was originally envisioned as Phase 2 in the mid-1990's when the Concourse and Preschool addition was added. During the early 2000's, church leaders sensed God's calling and Neil Pohlhaus and Denise Simms led a capital campaign to begin collecting the funds needed to build a new Worship Center and additional facilities. The New Building Committee led by Mark Dininno spent countless hours in the design phase with the architect. The Session sought God's wisdom through praying, listening, learning, and discerning God's will for the new building project. A discernment process was conducted with leadership and the congregation. The process culminated with a November 2006 Congregational Meeting where there was an overwhelming vote to proceed with the project. Each of these key events clearly represented building altars to God and seeking His direction on how and when to proceed.

God has blessed the construction process in so many ways that it is impossible to mention all of them in this article, but I will try to highlight a few. A special event was the removal of the beloved oak tree that stood by the north sidewalk. Although many of us were sorry to see it removed, God had a wonderful plan for it. The lumber from that tree is now shaped into the cross that is the centerpiece for the new Worship Center. It is clearly symbolic of Central's legacy of faith.

God truly blessed us with a mild winter of 2007, whereby construction proceeded in an unimpeded fashion resulting in completing the project several months ahead of schedule. We were additionally blessed by a beautiful design, a dedicated construction company, with professional, competent project and site managers, and subcontractors who performed their jobs well and with a great attitude.

The New Building Committee, church staff, and daytime preschool staff, blessed this project with their incredible flexibility, forbearing spirits, and godly attitudes. Everyone was asked to change routines, accommodate inconveniences, and basically "go with the flow" for months on end. We were especially blessed by the many volunteers like Les Bley and Bruce Stuart who gave enormous amounts of time tracking, monitoring and supporting the project. Additionally, there was "hands-on" assistance from Perry Welling and others that saved us thousands of dollars in labor and purchasing materials. On March 8th, we were able to celebrate these folks with a Thank You Dinner in the new Courtyard Room. The contractors were very moved by the appreciative attitude and recognition that they received at Central from all—the Congregation to the leadership. The project manager said that in his 30 plus years in the construction business that no other client had prepared a Thank You Dinner to recognize their efforts in successfully completing a project. This dinner represented a true fulfillment of one of the desires for the new building - "to bless others because we are blessed."

As we review the altars, we can see that God has honored the listening, learning, and discerning process that Central went through in seeking His will for this project. Now we can excitedly anticipate the celebration of the new building as God's special tool for fulfilling His Kingdom mission at Central of "moving people toward Christ."