April 1st.

For some a day for tricks and humour. I am simply looking at the weather we have been having for the last few days. 80 degrees!!! It's breaking all the records for temperature around here. Everything is starting to pop out and bloom.

It is a very different spring!

And I am sitting here just trying to focus on what the day unfolds for me. Early this am, I meet with the state to confirm what will be needed in this building for it to pass. We are very close. It is a financial stretch and yet the words I received yesterday appear to indicate God's heart for us. After that a prayer meeting with 3 other pastors, to begin working towards our tent meeting in July. Then on to the nursing home for 3 hours (Being in the nursing home has been an experience for me. A good experience. The unfortunate part is there are only two of us and 150 residents.) and then on to another pastor prayer meeting in town (finally made it!). Sometime around 7 I will arrive home! But I really like these kind of days. I want to share the building possibility with you and some vision today. Hopefully that will not be a problem.

This building returns us to the heart of the city. It is one of the oldest buildings in the city. A former grist mill. Having owned a gristmill in southern Vermont, I see a lot of biblical images brought to life.

There is a river that must run under a building moving a turbine of sorts that in turn rotates a wheel for the grinding of grain. The grain was brought in by the community for grinding between these large millstones.This river is called the Black River here. A few years ago there was a prophetic word that it would be the river of life here in the area. Just below the building is a place called Comtu (Indian for Big Noise) Falls. There is even a small little gold mine form a former era in the basement.

What is really kind of funny is that I looked at buying this building 3 years ago.The whole building is over 16,000 sqare feet.

For us this building will meet the requirements for assembly space for perhaps 80-100 with certain partitions removed. It will provide 2 classrooms and an office on the main level. It also has a conference area and a kitchen with views of the river. Handicap access is there. It also has a lower level on the river which can provide for a church store and offices.

What does it take to lose a soul? I realized a few days ago that my hand had been lifted from the pulse of this city with our move. No longer was I downtown looking at what needed to be changed, but meeting uptown where very little needed to change.

Church. We need to get "dirty" with the things of God. When our focus is on saving the saved and and we lose our emphasis on what God wants. I always here it isn't a numbers thing. Yes it is. God wants numbers. He is not concerned with lesser in this case but more!

Some of you have been saved from the deep dark recesses of the enemy's camps and don't want to go back there to give what you received. If you were a drug addict or an alcoholic don't they need Jesus? Just as much as you do?

It is truly "nice" to meet somewhere where our past is not confronted by the "drunk" next to us. But its not real life or certainly not Jesus' life. Did he stop going to the "bars" or where the dregs of society lived? Did He not visit someone because they smoked or reeked of alcohol? He visited the lepers!

And some of us have struggled with change because there is nothing life changing flowing into us. When you begin to reach out into the community, there is an increase that comes.

Today as I pray for you, I ask that you would pray for us. I believe that this building can be an answer to prayer. I don't know how we do the money. But somewhere I know that the heart of the people is in my ears and that once again there is work to do.