It was a good day. The Saturday night set-ups have gone well and they make the Sundays better in every way. We used to have to show up at the school early in the morning and unload everything - originally from vans and cars and then cube vans and finally out of on-site storage. Now there is time to set up, practice the music, get the refreshments ready to go and then turn off the lights and get some sleep.

I have to admit that there are days I would like to own a building that stayed set up all the time - but the cost of real estate is monstrous in Calgary (and getting monstrous-er), and then we would have to worry about mortgages and maintenance, etc. The trade off is not just the lack of set-up, but also the ways we could resource our community. The speed that communities are popping up means that the new ones often lack community centres, meeting space, child care facilities, etc.

Other days it seems appealing to go into a house church model - again removing the need for a weekly set up. This fades as I realize that is the main reason really laziness on my part. Not that I am against this model, I know a few people that doing organic churches and there are lots of upsides. The reason I don't move us into that model is that we get so many people from different backgrounds and the larger meeting space allows us to gather and celebrate our diversity.

Since the beginning of the year we have also been helping out with another church plant.  We always said it would have been nice to have had another church come alongside us and just give us help in areas we were short staffed. Somedays it is hard to rush out from tearing down only to drive across the city for a second go at it - especially since my wife is 5 months pregnant!! But it is what we love doing, the kids have friends there, and the traffic isn't so bad on a Sunday afternoon. 

Ehkosit,

Migwec