New Opportunities, New Challenges

Many have been asking, “How’s it going in the new building?” Overall it’s going extremely well. We have been amazed how smoothly most of the transition has unfolded these past several weeks.

We are very thankful to so many who have served faithfully to make this possible.

We continue to be encouraged by the level of involvement and dedication of the people of LBC to the mission God has given us. As you probably know, Easter was a full house.We had 7000 people in the new auditorium celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of our Savior Jesus. What a memorable time that was. Of course it will be months before we really understand where we are going to settle in attendance, but it appears we’re up between 500 and 1000 from where we were last year in these same months.

Someone recently asked me, “Are people not coming to the new auditorium?”What precipitated the question was the lack of congestion and chaos in the hallways. That used to be our Sunday morning trademark. Now the traffic patterns and spaces are so dramatically improved it almost seems as if less people are attending.We look forward to the days when we pack these halls again, but for now we have plenty of empty seats so let’s be hard at the mission and fill those seats with people who need to know Jesus.

Speaking of people coming to know Jesus, what are becoming one of the most meaningful family times at LBC are the baptism services. If you’ve never attended one of those services in recent years, you’ve missed a very special time together. Our next service is planned for September 9 following the weekend presentation of the State of the Church. This year our baptisms will include people from both North Pointe Community Church and Abiding Grace. It will be a great chance to see these three church families together again.

If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior but have never publicly declared yourself to be a Jesus-follower through baptism, I would urge you to consider taking that important step of obedience this September.We’re offering a three week summer Baptism Class beginning June 16/17 for those interested in learning more about baptism and possibly pursuing baptism this Fall. You can get more information about baptism and the Baptism Class at the Adult Seasons of Life Ministries booth.