“Don’t worry. Buy the ducks, they’ll line up when I tell them too.”
What if the ducks aren’t in a row? What if they are haphazardly placed in a zig zag pattern. What if they are not even in the same pond together? What if your duck whisperer friend keeps telling you, “Don’t worry, they’ll get in line when I tell them too?” Do you trust him? Or do you put on waders and start gathering ducks to line them up?
We are at this crazy spot in our ministry where the ducks are not all lined up. The duck whisperer keeps telling us, “Don’t worry. Buy the ducks, they’ll line up when I tell them too.”
Maybe if I write this down, it will be cathartic and you will encourage me and all those willing to take the leap with me.
I have never once wanted a Chi Alpha house - Ever! I have seen the times when they are a blessing, but that has always been trumped by the financial burden that comes with them.
The Duck whisperer has been speaking a message to me for a while about having a legitimate, physical presence in Orem, Utah.
Why?
Orem has... (PAUSE). I said pause because something kind of crazy just happened. I had to stop writing because I had another class to teach. For those of you that don’t, I teach Chinese children to speak English via the internet. I teach hundreds of different lessons with hundreds of different slides, but this particular lesson had a picture with a mamma duck and three baby ducks lined up in a row in a pond. The student’s task is to move the ducks out of row so that she can read words. When I looked at the slide at the end, all the ducks were scattered about - definitely not in a row. Ummmm….so……the duck whisperer speaks again.
I don’t even know if I need to explain the rest but I feel like I need to write it down to squelch my doubts in the future. This could get long…
Sometime in March something started stirring in me. A realization that real estate matters in Orem and visibility matters. God spoke to me in numerous ways to make this very clear.
Now fast forward to June 3rd. The pastor of our church, New Community Church, texts Daran and says “Let’s look at a building in Orem for a church and a Chi Alpha House.” (BTW, I had never discussed a building in Orem with him. This is quite a distance from the dance studio we meet in.) Daran met him on June 4th, while I was leading Chi Alpha staff meeting at home. In the middle of staff meeting, Daran, Dave, Melissa (Dave’s wife) and Naomi (their daughter) enter our XA room/office in our house. I’m not sure Dave or Melissa expected my reaction to this building idea. I was always the one that was overly cautious about buildings. I was always the one that said it wasn’t worth the risk. I was always the naysayer to having real estate in the church’s or Chi Alpha’s name. This time, the Lord had dramatically changed my perspective and I said resoundingly yes.
Many of you know that I was elected presbyter of our section this year. Because of that I was invited to a meeting on June 5th (two days after we found the building.) I entered a meeting with some of our sectional leaders with an idea brewing in my mind. I was going to ask them for money to help make this building work. I was going to ask them for a good amount of money.
The meeting wasn’t supposed to be about money. The meeting was about a retreat we have coming up, but our assistant superintendent started off the meeting with, “We need to talk about what to do with the money in the church planting fund.” He explained that we had tried all different ways of planting churches and had discovered that the best way to plant a church was with a group of established Utahns, not by bringing a team from another state. Hmmm…kind of like us. So I told them my idea, and for some crazy reason, they said it was a good one and they would support us. Interestingly enough, Dave, our pastor was unexpectedly sitting beside me in the meeting. He had been invited to.
So yesterday, we sat in this building on State Street. State Street is the busiest street in Orem. 61,000 people drive on it a day!
A few reasons for this building:
Location! Location! Location!
The landlord will let us lease it. No one wants to rent to churches here as confirmed by our many calls to landlords about buildings and their answer, “The HOA won’t let us rent to churches” or some other similar answer.
The cost is ridiculously cheap because some updating needs to be done on one side of it. We will use the church planting fund money for this.
We will have a sign that says: “NEW COMMUNITY CHURCH” on State Street in Orem!
We will have a sign that says: “CHI ALPHA CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP” on State Street in Orem!
I am more and more certain every day that this needs to happen. So if you want to be a part of this “haphazard duck dream" coming true, click on the “SUPPORT” button above. We need $3000 within a couple days to secure the building. After that, I will have to depend on God to round up the ducks in an orderly fashion. I just have to keep trusting him as he says, “Don’t worry. Buy the ducks, they’ll line up when I tell them too.”