Clay Pots ~ Church Buildings

The believer’s New Meeting Place
Budget: $0.00
Materials: $0.00
Labor: $0.00
Amount of time to build: 3 hours

For the past 11 months, the believers have met outside in the rain, and sun. Before you assume that it was a poor lack of planning, I will assure you that we did this with intention. With so much emphasis put on church buildings in this country (if you show up to the church building on Sundays, then God will be appeased or satisfied and allow you into heaven) it was important to us that the believers learn that God is only satisfied with us on the basis of our belief in his Son. And we wanted them to realize that they are not a “church organization” but an organism… a body of people who trusted in Christ’s finished work on the cross. Their belief in Christ is what binds them together in unity, not a building. It has been an incredible testimony to each other and to the community around them that they didn’t need a building in order to hear God’s word and worship Him.

But with Kellie and the ladies meeting every Tuesday and with their numbers continuing to grow, they needed a place to keep all the kids out of the sun or rain as they met. Also, God has been overwhelmingly faithful to us as we have met outside every Thursday since January and have only had two rain days, but the people felt a need to at least get out of the sun which is fairly intense. So this past Thursday all the believers rallied together to throw together a ‘make shift’ building. It is not permanent by any stretch of the imagination, but it will serve it’s purpose. It has no walls and is open so that everyone can see what we are doing and yet keeps the sun and rain off. The Grandpas and Grandmas watched all the kids while the woman went to cut long pitpit grass for the roof. The men built the structure and put the grass on. It is always so incredible to see the body of Christ at work and the intimate fellowship among fellow brothers and sisters, not to mention the laughter and singing that took place as well!

On Sunday the men met for our weekly Bible study. One thing that was mentioned was that God’s Word is not bound to any one place or building; but that it is a powerful word that should and does infect our every area of life (going to the garden, walking on the trails, sitting in our houses). WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT ANYWHERE, because it is LIFE! So I asked them, “What did Jesus say to do with this message of life? Did he tell the disciples that they were supposed to sit in Jerusalem and call people to come and hear it?” They said, “No, he told them not to stay in Jerusalem, but to go out to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” So I asked, “What does that mean to us? Should we sit down here in our house and tell everyone to ‘come’, or what?” They said, “No, we are to go out with this message, just like the apostles and Paul did. In fact, Jesus even said of Himself that He did not have a house to sleep in, and he kept telling others of God’s way of life. We need to be like that.” So I said, “Yes, and this little make-shift building which we just built will rot and fall down and we will probably not meet here in a few years, because we will be going out and telling others of the road to eternal life, Jesus.”

Please continue to pray for the believers. They are beginning to sense an urgency to tell their families and clans this gospel of life. We want you to pray that they will not just feel the urgency, but do something about it.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement, we appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.