by Pastor Tim White
When you experience a miracle, the whole world seems new. Last weekend, we experienced one when Leon Patillo, former lead singer for Santana, visited us and it was an amazing, grace-filled weekend! It was all in God’s timing. Leon had called and said he and his wife Renee were going to be in town for a YWAM Banquet and would we like to have them as guests. I said, “yes”. I was recovering from my surgery and I knew it was time to unload the burden that had been on the hearts of the Board of Directors and Finance Committee (of the loving family we call Washington Cathedral). So, we planned a Banquet for the Saturday night service just one month ahead of Easter. And without much publicity the Sanctuary was full of people who are what I call Keepers of the Dream. We shared the story of how we had to sell our property so that the church could pay off its debtors from our huge recreation building project. Willows Preparatory School bought the property and graciously agreed to lease it back to us for 35 years. We had been able to use Spirit Falls 24/7 for free and use any of the other buildings on campus during weekends for a fair rental cost. The challenge was that when they complete the new High School in July, we would begin to pay $13,300 a month to continue that lease. After much investigation we realized that this was the best deal for our church that we could expect.
You can see that this was a defining moment for the dream of trying to build a great caring network. Our community missions and overseas missions are at an all-time high. And while we may no longer be a mega church renting Meydenbauer Center for special services with 6,000 people in attendance, we are still a very powerful and dynamic moderate-sized church with the continued dream of being a meta church and uniting with churches of other cultures for worship, family, missions, healing, etc.
Well, if you were there, you saw why it was one of the most inspiring weekends of my life! One third of the $100/month pledges needed above our normal tithes and offerings were pledged. This is a new high for us. We hope to have all pledges completed by July 1st and I believe we will. It breathed a breath of new life into our church. What seemed impossible has become an incredible launching pad of possibilities. We call this campaign Rockin’ the Dream because we are putting this beautiful dream into Rock. We realize that sometimes “our greatest life is just on the other side of our greatest fears.” And just like the children of Israel, we are marching around the Walls of Jericho believing that this wall will come tumbling down.
This week I am preaching on James Chapter 4. If you know the Book, you know it is a great chapter in the Bible and I am calling my message - How to Build or Rebuild a Winning Team. Every great life is represented by a great team and you are the one catalyst, along with God’s divine ways, to put your team together.
Join us this weekend: Saturday at 5:30pm, Sunday at 9:30am and 11:00am, as we take another stride ahead in taking our church deeper into God’s Word and purposes. To build a church full of disciple-makers that will challenge the shallow faith across our land which has given Christianity a reputation that is causing such a large drop-out of the next generation. We need you there and you need to be there - so let’s meet.
Your friend for the rest of my life,
Pastor Tim White