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This is something we have been looking forward to for a number of years. I have been behind the scenes working on this for several years. It feels like looking for our next step, and the reason we’re looking for that next step is probably you’re within elbow distance of your neighbor, right? So we’ve known that we’ve we’ve needed to take a future step as a church. And so today we’re going to we’re going to talk about what that future step looks like. And I’m going to be frank with you, our Mo, if you’ve been a part of ABC, our Mo is not to be flashy. And we’re not we’re not about just trying to create hype and excitement. We’re a group of people that wants to be faithful to Jesus and what he’s called us to in this world. And so part of this, part of what we’re about to share is going to give you an opportunity to respond in it. And in order to do this, we’ve got to respond together as God’s people. And we want the Lord to to be in this. We don’t want this if God’s not in this, but we’re going to as we think about ministry here in Utah, I like to say this is going to come across as a little bit uncouth, but, um, you know, for Christians, our symbol is the cross, right? The darkest day in history is the greatest symbol of victory for us. If God can do that at the cross, imagine what he can do in your life, right? That’s the symbol of Christianity.
As a pastor, I have learned sometimes my symbol is a puke bucket. And what I mean is, when you’re doing ministry for the Lord, God takes you to places where you start to look at where God is leading. And then you might start to second guess that, right? Like, oh God, why not somebody else? Or why, you know what? If it doesn’t work out? Or what if we try to force our will? Or what if you know all those what ifs, but but God’s hand has been on us in a way that we can see how God’s laid out some steps in front of us. And we we want to make you aware of what that is. And as we share this, we don’t want to use guilt as our motivator. We just want you to be seeking God’s face and asking the Lord God, where? Where is my part to play in what you’ve been doing here at ABC? Because God’s been writing a beautiful story And we want to see God continue to move in a way that is not just about us. We, God, God’s called us into this world to make a difference that will outlive who we are and to be able to do that, one of the things we need is to be able to provide more space for people to come to know the Lord.
And if you’re here, I’m glad you’re here, and I want you to stay here, but I also want you to be able to invite more people here. And right now, every time we do like an outreach, we’re like, well, it’d be great if people come, but we’ll tell them to stand in the back, I guess. So. So that’s that’s not what we want because God’s called us to more than that. And and part of being able to do ministry is providing good hospitality for those that are curious to know the Lord. And so I want to I’m going to we’re going to take a minute. Now I’m going to share a video with you, and then I’m going to come back up and talk about our story as a church. In much of Utah is a physical desert hot, dry, arid, and water is scarce in many ways. It’s also a spiritual desert, where only 2.5% of the population identifies as Biblical Christian. To meet the needs of this area, Alpine Bible Church was founded in 2008 with a small group of people meeting in a home. The goal was simple to establish a church in northern Utah County that would help reach all of Utah with the gospel I love. I get the opportunity to share this with the church here in Wines Park. This was the place when I first visited in Utah in 2003 that I said to the Lord God, if you ever lead me back here, I just want to be faithful to see what you want to do.
And 2006 God led my wife and I back to Utah, and in 2008, we started Alpine Bible Church. And, you know, Alpine Bible Church is certainly a place that matters to me. It matters to my family, and I know it matters to us as a congregation, as a church body has grown over the years, the church has moved locations six times to accommodate the growing number of people we’ve met in hotel conference rooms, in a print shop, and our current location used to be a bar and haunted house, and that’s no joke. So here at Alpine Bible Church, we are just a small portion of the body of Christ, and our desire is to meet the growing need in our community. But we simply lack the space currently for a place that we can all meet together. We’re seeing God’s hand at work and preparing the way for us to build a new building to better serve our community, both now and in the future. We have the opportunity to purchase a parcel of land right in the heart of the city, and we need your help. This piece of property right on Main Street is four acres, and it’s going to allow us to not only secure our future, but to be able to expand as we grow. And when we think about what God has done at ABC, we appreciate it.
But we realize we’re so pressed for space that we need to open up the opportunity for God to do more, because people matter to the Lord. And reaching, reaching people for the Lord should matter to us because it matters to the Lord. And so over these next seven weeks, for 42 days, we’re going to ask you as a church, to help give towards a campaign that will secure the land for our church’s future. And we’re going to go through this in three phases. Phase one secure the land. Phase two begin the building project. And phase three will be down the road. And that’s when we expand other things on our property because we’re going to have room to grow. But right now we’re asking you, will you commit to help us reach our $450,000 goal in order to secure the land so that we can move forward on our building campaign? You know, one of the beautiful things is that we had a generous donor come forward and say to us, out of the 450,000 you need to raise, I’m going to put up the first 200,000 as a matching gift. And so for every dollar that you give for the first $400,000 that comes in, it will be matched dollar for dollar, up to 400,000. We’ve seen what God has done here at ABC, and we know what God can continue to do if we would open up our hearts.
Pray about it before the Lord and ask God, what is it you desire for us as a church? When we think about our future and the opportunity to reach Utah first, you can be praying for us as we begin this journey and ask for God’s continued blessing on our church body. Second, you can contribute financially. This is to help us purchase this land and get a new building built. Any contribution you can make will help us further our goals of reaching our community. Third, you can share this campaign with your friends and families and tell them why this matters to you. So. Church, this is our moment. Because this doesn’t just matter to me. I know it matters to all of us and we’ve been looking forward to it. The And churches have different seasons of, of of opportunity in the way that they can show their love for the Lord and for us. Right now, that season is figuring out the next step to be able to accommodate our growth and best minister to our community and throughout this state. You know, as a church, we don’t have the ambition to be a megachurch. That’s never been our heart’s desire. From the beginning we started ABC, we wanted to build a facility that could accommodate 400 people at a time, and from there look to multiply. And part of the part of the reason we’ve sought after that. And by the way, we’re already involved in multiplication.
But but part of the reason we’ve we’ve sought after that as a church is because of the need around us. And when it comes to Utah, one of the things I love about Utah is it is a beautiful place. It’s full of wonderful people, and I love being able to minister here. I care about the people around us, and I think I care more about the people around us because of what Christ has done in my own life and in the beauty of getting to know Jesus and finding purpose in my existence because of who Christ is. I want other people to have that privilege to be able to know Jesus as well. And so our desire has, has been to not only see a church established, but to always make sure as a church, we’re looking beyond us. And one of the reasons we want to do that is simply because of the statistics of where we live. You know, while Utah is a beautiful state when it comes to biblical Christianity, it’s pretty desolate, especially in comparison to to the rest of the United States, and even sometimes in comparison to the rest of the world. The archives for Religious Data actually ranks Utah as the lowest percentage of biblical Christians out of any other state in the United States. In fact, if you look at this, you might see it’s kind of a smaller font there. But Utah is ranked 51, and if you remember any history class or geography class, there are not 51 states in the United States is because they count Washington, DC.
So we we rank lower than all the states, plus Washington, D.C. we have a 2% rate for biblical Christianity here in in comparison to the rest of the world. That’s 20 out of every 1000 people or excuse me, the rest of the United States. So the the need for biblical Christianity is, is massive here that that we would see the need and respond to that. And, and when you think about the needs in Utah, more particularly Utah itself, there’s only one biblical church for every 17,000 people throughout our state, Utah County, that that need is even greater Utah County. There’s one biblical church for every 29,000 people. Um, when you look at our the Archives of Religious Data, when you when you look at their statistics for the state of Utah, you might think, well, Utah’s 2%, but but the only way you can really go up from that low or the only direction you can really go from that low is up. Right? So the grass is green for us. Plenty of opportunity. But if you go back and look at their stats from ten years ago, what you discover is the numbers are actually going down, that it was closer to 2.5% ten years ago, and now we’re closer to 2% today. And the same thing is true for Utah County.
Utah County was at about a half of 1%, and now we’re at 0.4% of biblical Christians within our county. So so the need is is growing in comparison to the rest of the United States. The United States averages about one church for every 925 people. And here we are in our county, one for every 29,000 people. And so the the biblical church’s presence here is, is needs to increase. And I remember when I, um, when I first moved to, to Utah or excuse me when I first visited Utah, how shocking it was to me. And the reason for that, I didn’t really know a place like Utah existed in the United States. I just imagine Utah was like everywhere else, USA, you know, and then you visit and you just find there is some uniqueness to to us here. And while it’s a beautiful place, that uniqueness is important to respond in the gospel. You know, one of the things I can’t help but wonder when I, when I wake up every day in Utah is why does a place like Utah exist? Because when the church understands the reasons for which it was created in the Lord, God created us to live on mission. And that mission is always about thinking beyond yourself. What does God want to do in my life? To then work in the hearts of people around me? And when I when I think about Jesus’s ministry in the scriptures, in the book of Matthew, Jesus started and ended his ministry the same way he began his ministry by calling his first couple of disciples to follow after him, to to go out into this world and make a difference, you’ll become fishers of men.
You’ll go into this world and you’ll reach people. That was Jesus’s call. The whole purpose of the church is not about a building, it’s about people. The whole purpose of ministry is about reaching people. And for us as a church, we’ve always done that in the different locations. We’ve we’ve moved. We’ve waited till we’ve got to this press spot where our desire primarily is in a building. But we realize a building gives us opportunity to reach people. And so Matthew chapter four, that’s what Jesus says. And then when Jesus ends his ministry after he’s he’s he’s crucified, resurrected, he looks out of his disciples that he spent the last three years with. And in Matthew 2819 he says, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things I have taught you. And he says, he gives that promise at the end. I am with you always to the end of the age. So. So the power of God’s people is found in the presence of God, who is with him to fulfill the mission which God has called them on, which is to always be thinking beyond yourself. It’s wonderful that God wants to do something in you.
But but in that work that God wants to do in you, God also wants to use that transforming power to work through you to reach the hearts of other people. And when you think about the the foundation for the church exists on this commissioning of his people, it leaves me with the question, well, why in the world is a place like Utah exist? Why is it I can go in entire cities in Utah with ten, 20,000 people, and there’s never been any Christian trying to start a biblical church there. When Stacy and I first moved to Utah, one of the reasons we we wanted to start a church here in Lehi is we did demographic studies throughout the state, and we found the highest concentration of population with the least biblical gospel presence. And and we start in Lehi. And the desire was from here that God could use this church to reach other places. I mean, even today, when you go up to Cedar Hills and Alpine, there’s never been an attempt at establishing a church there. And so the need is great. Why in the world does does a situation like this exist when when America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles that God’s people are here. But but the need has has needed a Response. And so when I, when I consider our state’s, you know, spiritual need, it challenges me. In fact, it invigorates me to think every morning that I wake up, I may be the only person who knows the the biblical Jesus that gets to interact with people.
I get to be that light in this world where maybe there has not been that light present in someone else’s life. And what a beautiful place that is. And to be able to invite them to be a part of our community as we live on mission for for the Lord together. In my my first trip here in 2003, if I’m if I’m being frank or just honest with the state of where I was, I came to Utah not because of any spiritual need in 2003. I came to Utah because I had never been west of the Mississippi, and I wanted to see the Rocky Mountains. That was it. And when I got here, I was here for two weeks, and God used that trip to really Transform my life in my mind. I was wanting to to move to Asia, to do some ministry in Asia, and the percentage of Christians in the area that I was thinking about ministering was actually higher than in Utah. And I thought to myself, why? Why do I even want to? Why would I want to leave my own country with such a tremendous need to go somewhere else when it’s in my own backyard? And God used that trip to start working in my heart. I happened to find a church that was going on a men’s retreat while I was here, and I decided to go with them.
I started to hear the stories of some of the individuals, and the way they came to know Jesus, and God really used that in my life. And while I was here, I met a couple from Lehi. Uh, their name was. Names were Pat and Larry Thomas and Larry had not too long before my time here had come to know Jesus in his 60s. And I remember when I met that couple, they said to me, if I would ever move back to Utah to start a church, they would be right there working with me now. Pat and Larry, some of you may know Pat and Larry, some of you may not. The reason you may not know them is because they passed away during Covid within about a year of each other. They they both passed away. They lived right by Lehigh Cemetery. That’s where they’re buried. And and their heart was to see what God could do here. I remember when I after I met with him, I went over to Wines Park and I just kneeled before the Lord and prayed. And I said, God, if you ever if you ever bring me back here, there’s there’s a few things that I just want to commit to you to do. God, I always want to teach your word with integrity. I’m tired of terrible leaders. I want to honor you with integrity in your word, regardless of the consequence of people may know you the purity of who you are.
I just want to teach that to God. I want to love anyone that comes through our doors. God. Everyone that comes through our doors. I know in living in Utah, when people make that decision to come to our church, there are often consequences that can come along with that. Every soul matters to God, and we want to do our best to love those souls that come through our doors. And three we always want to have a vision bigger than ourselves. God, we want it. Not just think about our church, but how you can use this church to make a difference in this state. And so with that prayer, before the Lord God finally led us back here in 2008, we started ABC as a Bible study just about a mile up the road from here. We started as a Bible study, and since then God has just directed our steps where we’ve been in six different locations now. We went from we went from a living room to a hotel. We met in a conference room and our kids went outside on a picnic table. We had two rooms. We had a conference room for the adults and a picnic table for the kids, and we knew it was time to to to leave the hotel when someone stole the picnic table. One Sunday we showed up. We we were missing one of our classrooms, and so we went from there to to a print shop that smelled terrible, but we met there because that was the only space we could find to a storefront, to then to a double storefront.
And then during during the days we were in the double storefront. That’s when our economy collapsed. And this place that was a bar went out of business. And I lived about a little, a little less than a mile from here. So I would run from my house down here, and I would just run laps around this building, praying that God would give us this building that we could meet in. And at the time, we were only about 60 people, I want to say, and just praying that God would give this building and this building was in a terrible state. But just praying, praying, praying. And we would call the bank every month. Just have you sold it yet? Okay. Don’t sell it because we really want it just for two years. Two years we did that. And finally after two years, the bank called and said we finally got a buyer. But we feel so guilty selling it to you that we’re going to let you buy it for the same price if you want it. And I said, that’s great. We don’t have any money, but we’ll take it. And the bank said, okay, well, let us call you back. And they called me back and they said, we’ll just carry the loan for you if you’ll just take the building.
And we did. That’s how we got this building. I mean, each step of the way, it’s just been trusting that God would supply and seeing what God would do. And it’s been an incredible story. And seeing how how God has, has, has been faithful to us. It reminds me of that passage in Isaiah 61 where God says, he will provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I mean, God is a God who who has just been faithful to us. And one of the things I love about our story as a church is that we are a gritty group of people. Usually when you when you start a church anywhere in America, typically you find that when they launch a church, there’s a lot of funding to launch a church, like hundreds of thousands of dollars and a church is launched. That’s typically the way that works. But that is not ABC story. I mean, we have been a group that has just grinded it out. We have my wife and I, we’ve, you know, just worked jobs, done whatever it’s taken just to see this church get to the the place that it is today. We will do what it takes. We are committed our lives to just serving the Lord here, and we’ve seen how God has provided.
One person recently came and visited a church that knows our story, and it’s like the way they described us. They said, you guys are like a group that’s been hewn out of the side of the mountain. Just you’ve just trusted the Lord and God has just provided through your own, your own people to see from nothing something birthed. And it’s been a beautiful experience to be a part of, just to see how God from the ashes brings such beauty. And and that’s the story here at ABC. And when you think about the way God works. God doesn’t just throw away things as if as if it’s trash. God transforms. God takes what’s broken and he makes something new. And I feel like that’s my story. I remember when When I became a believer, God radically changed my life. I described myself, my pre-jesus days as a pagan wild child. And in college, that’s where God grabbed hold of my heart and just absolutely transformed who I was. I remember the night in which I gave my life to Christ. I said, God, my life, everything I have is yours. Whatever you want to do with it, I’m willing to go. I didn’t know it was going to be Utah, but no. Just kidding. But. But God led led me here. And not just me. I know that’s not just my story. It’s your stories too.
The way God has picked you up and used you for his glory in this world. And. And because of who he is, we know as God’s people, our best days are always in front of us with the grace of God. And there’s bumps in the road along the way. But because of his grace, we always have a tremendous hope. And so when we think about not only our past, but where we are as today, as a church, the the way God has been working among our body. All of our ministries are are growing here. Our our, uh, outreach that we do as a church, just constantly extending ourselves to people around us and our involvement in church planting, which I’ll talk about in a minute. As, as a church, we’re we’re helping not only church planting in this state, but also around this world. We’re involved in missions, missions taking place around the world, which let me just give a selfless, selfish plug here for for our ministries in India that we support. Our brothers and sisters in Christ in India are under a lot of persecution right now. And so if you ever want to learn about ministries we support, you can get on our website and look at the missions ministries that we’re behind. But I’d ask you as a church to pray, particularly for those that we’re supporting in India because of what they’re going through. But but God is doing a beautiful work where people are coming to know him.
And even last week, 17 baptisms that we were able to celebrate. And when you look at that, just just in terms of numbers, our calendar year as a church starts in September. So today is the start of a brand new calendar year for us, and it ends the last day of August in 2020 to 2021. During our Covid year, our churches attendance was 171 people. Since that year, we have grown by an average of 27% each year. Last year we grew by 31%. And so today our average attendance for this last year was more than double from where we were during Covid year. So we’re 346 people as our average attendance last Sunday. Now that’s the average for the year. Yes. Last Sunday we had over 400 people here. I don’t know if you paid attention to the aerial shot of our church, but I don’t know how you fit 400 people in this building. For the last couple of years, I have looked at our church being like, okay, next year our stats should say we didn’t grow because, well, unless we start putting people in cupboards, we don’t have room, right? So I expect every year that we’re going to stop growing because I don’t know how we can fit people anymore. And yet somehow we keep growing. And by the way, if you if you want a little bit more room first service still has some room to grow.
Okay, but but we we are pressed out of space and in third service is even worse than this. So just just the ability to maybe I should say better third service. I don’t know. I don’t know how to qualify that problem. But third service we we’re packed even beyond this. And so we’re, we’re certainly growing in number. And you know, because our nature as a church is not we’re not just trying to attract we don’t want to create a crowd. I’m not interested in creating a crowd. Anybody can create a crowd. We want to create a group of people that really want to live their life. For Jesus, to know the biblical Jesus and live for him. And and so that that’s more important for us. In fact, just to create a crowd, you can just you can really create an unhealthy group of people if you’re your motive is just to get a group together. That’s not our motive. Our motive is heart sold out to Christ to live for his glory in this world, to know Jesus and to make him known. And. And when we as we’ve done that as a church, we’ve we’ve seen God just give us just a steady increase every year. We’ve grown as a church and not just in in attendance. We’re also growing in giving. Now, I want you to know our giving is not keeping up in proportion to our attendance. I rarely talk about money here as a church, because I get tired of people using that as motivators to guilt people, and that’s not what we are about.
But I think it’s important to know where we are in our giving, because it’s a tool that the Lord is able to use for his glory. And it’s a way that we as individuals have an opportunity to show our love for the Lord. By the way, we dedicate what God has given us and not just financially, all that we are for his glory. And so each year our financial giving has gone up. Um, but if you look at statistics on the American church, if I just let you know where we rank as a church. Every organization that I looked at and I went to four different organizations that surveyed thousands of churches to see where we are. We are in the lower half of of where they would rank churches in giving. We’re several we’re several figures under under where the average church is in America by a few hundred thousand dollars for our size. Now, there’s reasons for that. And and some of it is because we live in a younger state. Some of it’s because we have a lot of new believers. Um, there are some organizations that rank our our churches giving and the lower 15 percentile of churches in the United States. And I don’t even think that churches in the United States are necessarily the healthy metric.
But I’m just I’m just letting you know where we are as a congregation. And and let me just give you a positive spin on this. Part of that is understanding, a responsibility I have as a pastor to share those needs with you and also give us something worthwhile to giving towards. And so when I look at where we are in giving comparison to the United States, the rest of the churches in the United States, and realize we’re under giving compared to other churches. And then I look at a building project. The opportunity we have coming before us, I realize we have a lot of opportunity here. So there’s your positive spin. We have a we have a lot of opportunity and how God can use us to be able to secure our, our future and build a building. And so when we talk about where where we are today, God’s done an incredible work. He’s he’s brought a beautiful family together. We have opportunity to give. And and here’s where we hope to go. We’re seeing God’s faithful hand to us. And we know our best days are still in front of us. If we, as as a church, continue to move forward with the desire to know God and to make him known, and we make people the priority. Our mission remains and always will be, about the heart of people. God created his church in order to reach people. It’s not about the building yet a building becomes a tool that we can use to be able to welcome people in that they may know Jesus too.
And so we want to use it not because our aspirations are to build a megachurch, not because we feel like we’re, you know, we we get to feel affirmed by a building. No, that’s that’s not what we are about. As God’s people. We want to be able to reach those around us. And so a building gives us that, that privilege to, to be able to do that. Um, you know, when we think about what we, we desire to, to see as a church for multiple years, we have we have known we’re kind of pressed for space in order to buy us more time. We we started a third service. Um, and I have gone around for several years now and, and sought after property owners in Lehigh to try to get some property. I started off with everyone around us to see if we could stay where we’re at. I have visited everyone around us multiple times. And when I say visited, I mean I went and got their tax records and found out where they lived, drove to their home and knocked on their door and tried to work out some kind of deal for us as a church. I did it so much that we hired a pro bono. I got a private investigator because I couldn’t find a couple of people.
That’s that’s that. And at one point, I drove up to one home. I remember I threw Lincoln, our youth pastor, in our car, and I drove up to one home. And that, I thought, was the correct address. And the person that lived in that home was coming out. And I’m like, they were walking out. I’m like, oh, sweet. We’ll just follow them and see where they’re going. And I got really I was so focused on trying to get a property. Lincoln sees me do this and he just slowly sinks down under the dashboard in our car. It’s like you’re stalking people. I’m like, oh yeah, yeah, I should probably not do this right. I was making it weird. But we need a home as a church right at one time. Finally, I just. I told Brenton one day, I said, Brenton, get in my car. We’re going to drive around from State Street to Redwood Road, every main road here in Lehi. Anywhere we see someone with more than two acres, we’re going to write them a letter and beg them to help us. And that’s what we did. And two days after that, I had a guy come into our church parking lot and he comes out with a letter and he says to me, how did you know? And I said, how did I know what? He goes, I was just sitting in front of my property trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do with it.
Drove down my driveway, opened up my mailbox, and there was a letter from your church in this mailbox. How did you know? And and we eventually we worked out a deal and we got his property appraised. And he came back and said, I want to cut you guys a bit of a deal and gave us more than six figures off the appraisal of the property for our future. And so that that property for us gives us not only a chance to build a church, but but because of the size of it, we have room to grow. It’s four acres right on Main Street, 710 West Main Street, right near the roundabout. If you know where the ball fields and the roundabout are in Lehi, it’s directly in between both of those locations. You can drive by it and see it. So it’s not a hidden place for us. But but this piece of property gives us longevity as a church and being able to to see what God can do through us. And when we think about what a building could look like, we’ve worked with Lehigh City to find out if whether or not we can actually go here in Lehigh City has given us approval. We’ve worked with some contractors on the possibility of what a design could look like for the future of our church. That’s going to give us room to expand. And so there’s multiple facilities that we can build there.
And our our eyes are well beyond just having a church. On Sunday, we think about our food pantry ministry, and we’d love to be able to expand what we can do with that. We think about our youth. We’d love to have our own facility for our youth. As a church, we’ve been involved in helping rescue children from a certain situations and we want to continue with with that. Our church is involved in church plant training here in the in the state of Utah as well as beyond. We we run an arm of a church plant organization in the state. We’re actively involved in church planting now. And so we do conferences at our church. And it’s gotten to a place where where we no longer fit. And so we’ve had to ask other churches to host what we’re doing because we can’t we can’t fit anymore. And so we can go back to doing better hosting for church plant training. Not only that, we have the ability now to give someone a masters of Divinity, a fully accredited Masters of Divinity spoke specifically towards church planting. So anyone that might be interested in planting another church in Utah, we can give them a masters of Divinity in that. And so part of this property we could use to build some housing for college students to serve on our church while they’re getting their Masters of Divinity before they launch out to plant a church.
And if you want to see where some of that’s going on in our state, the different works that we’re involved in, in ten days from now, I’ll be up north meeting with church planters to talk to them about what the works they have going on. And then 24 days from now, I’ll be in southern Utah doing the same thing, working with church planters. And so our hearts desire truly is well beyond us. And you as a church right now, we’re already giving towards these things because we we exist for a purpose that’s that’s greater than ourselves. And and through this, we want to continue to see what God wants to do through ABC, that we would live a legacy that outlasts us. And so we want to build a building and be able to expand that building. But before we can get to that point, the thing that we need to do right now that I want to invite you to as a church, to think about how you can play a part, is to secure our future. And the way that we secure that future is through, through purchasing this land for the next 42 days, seven weeks, we’re going to shoot to raise $450,000. Now, we’ve already got a matching gift for the first 200. So really for us now it becomes $250,000 that we need to raise over these next 42 days to be able to put that money down to purchase this land.
And so for us, there’s there’s a couple of things I think are important. One is to know we still have a regular budget we have to maintain as a church. But but also now there’s there’s an opportunity for us to give towards a long term future for ABC and the opportunity we have to to reach this state to be able to do that. We want everyone to be a part of it. There’s all of us have a part we can play. And I want to give you three ways that you you can play a part in this with us. Number one, you can pray. Um, you can pray for, you know, pray for the ways that God might lead you to be involved in this project. You can pray for the property when you pass it. Uh, when you go through a building project as a church, it adds a little extra stress. You can pray for us as a church when you wake up in the morning. When you go to bed at night, you can pray about the future opportunity that God’s going to provide for us to be able to reach more people. You can pray. Our hearts remain Fixed on on who God is and living for his glory in this valley. But all of us can be praying. We don’t want to do this work apart from God’s strength. Two. You can share. Um, you can share. You can share.
Your first is your contact information. You’ll see outside at the information table. We have these little cards. One of the things that we found out as we got ready to share what what God’s doing here with you as a church. And we want to send out some, some communication through the mail as well, or by email, um, update you with how this is going. We found out not everyone has given us all their information. So if you’ve moved recently, you’ve not, you know, you haven’t given us all your information. You’ve never gotten an email from the church or maybe a a letter from the church. That might be an indicator that we don’t have all your contact information. So if you want to fill this out just to make sure we have all your contact information, it would be a help to us to not only for this campaign, but anything we do as a church. Second thing you do is share your story. We want to know how how God has used ABC in your life and and why this matters to you. And a few ways you can do that. You can do it on social media through the hashtag. This matters to me. You can fill out this card. There’s a place on the back of the card of why this would matter. Why this matters to you, this this project that we’re going to go through. Or you can jump on our website.
This matters to me. And there’s a place that you can share your story there. You can also share with us any connections or contacts that you might have that you think would help us in the days ahead, whether that be financial resource contacts or building contacts, or maybe even a special skill that you think could be helpful. You never know. You know, if and the way to do that is if you jump on our website, you have to specifically jump on our website for this and click on Get Involved. And if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a place for professional contacts you can fill out there if you know of anybody, or maybe you yourself might be a resource. And the last thing we want to ask of you is when you leave today at the information counter, you’ll find that there are these envelopes and these letters and these envelopes and these letters give you an opportunity to share what God’s doing here with other people. Maybe you know someone that might want to be involved in the work that’s taking place here. And on this letter, you have a place to fill out your own note. In fact, we encourage you to write your own handwritten note because today it is it is cherished to receive handwritten letters. We’re at a day and age where everything is typed. And so when something handwritten is given, it’s given more attention and it’s taking taking a little more serious.
Now, if you want to know how to write a letter on our website, you can find a sample of that. But we want you to commit to try to send out five letters to some, maybe some friends or loved ones that you might that you think might find this important to be involved in, to ask them to to help us with this goal. Here’s what I expect. I don’t think we’re going to raise 250,000. I think we’re going to blow that out of the water. And if we do, great, because it’s going to help us quickly get to our building project. So for us right now, our building project will come in the near future. But right now, we have to secure our future by being able to put down the down payment of this land, which is the last step that I want to give you to ask you as a church, would you consider how the Lord wants you to give the next 42 days up until October 13th? We’re going to run this campaign for the hopes of getting $450,000. You can donate online to our website. You can write a check or give a gift in the offering box. You can even donate things like stocks or bonds. And if you want to know some more details on that, that’s on our website as well. Or you can grab there’s a letter on our information table outside that shares with you how you can even go about that if you’re interested in.
But if you have any questions about any of this campaign, the best thing to to do is to go to the table and they’ll be able to provide you. Hopefully some of those answers. If not, get back to you quickly. But but I want you to know, as a church, when it comes to answering the question, you know, what should you give? I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is how important it is and what we’re able to do as a church. You know, I think it’s wonderful that we have a bar slash haunted house that we can say went from the the spirits to the spiritual. Right. We can take real communion here. And. I’m just kidding. Um, it’s just grape juice. We’re going to take it in a minute, but but do you know, in a in a city of around 90,000 people, there’s never been a church built from the ground up. And we have the opportunity to do that, to declare to to the world around us, to the to northern Utah County. God is on the move, and God is continuing to transform lives, and you can be a part of that. And so for you, it becomes a matter of a question of what is that worth? And how can you show your love for the Lord in this opportunity? Because this this doesn’t happen every day.
But this is the season of where we are right now. And I want to share this verse. And then we’re going to partake of communion together. One of the verses that we picked as, as the theme of, of what we’re doing is found in Isaiah chapter 43 and verse 19. And it says this, behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers, in the desert. And when you look at this, this passage in context, what’s happening is pretty incredible that God in this story, starting about verse nine, he calls the nations together and tells the nations in a courtroom setting. Tell me why your God is true and the nations worshiping these false idols can’t give any response. And then God, who is working as the judge, also becomes the lawyer. And he looks to to Israel, his chosen people, and he says they will represent me. They will be my witnesses in court. And when he looks to them, he describes where they are. They’re in captivity. And he describes the people of Israel as a person who is blind and deaf. And what the description is, basically, they’re not going to be able to testify in court to declare a witness to who God is. And so what God is identifying is that it’s actually him that’s going to do the miraculous work in them, that that miracle will become the testimony to those around.
And then God says to him, do you remember when I brought you to to the Dead Sea? And I parted the sea, and you walked through the sea on dry ground? And Israel says, yes. And he says, forget that I’m going to do something altogether different this time, rather than parting the sea to allow you to walk on dry ground, I’m going to come to the dry ground and bring living water. And if you read the Gospels, you know this is exactly how John the Baptist started the Gospels. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths in the midst of this desert. Prepare the way of the Lord. That was John’s declaration. And what Jesus is saying is Isaiah 43 essentially is he’s he’s bringing the gospel, and the gospel is going to flow life to God’s people. And here we are today with our opportunity to not only declare what the gospel’s doing in our hearts, but to let God do that movement through us in the lives of other people. In the midst of the the desert comes rivers of living water. And this building, not the primary goal, but the building becomes the opportunity to do the primary goal which has reached the hearts of people around us. The gospel is still at work. I mean, you’re a testimony to that.