We are in a new season at Neighborhood Church. It is a season of building, restoring and dreaming.
You may have heard that we have shifted our Sunday worship services from the dome to our Fellowship Hall. As a leadership team, we decided to make this move because we believe Jesus was inviting us to join Him in investing in our people in new ways.
We did not change buildings because we wanted to save money, although we are happy to repurpose some funds toward upgrading sound, lighting, décor, etc. We are excited to be able to start with adding some additional lighting this week and a monitor on the back wall so the person on stage doesn’t have to keep turning around to read the screen. The back wall monitor also helps our worship teams to have the worship lyrics visible. I’m very excited about that improvement! We have wanted something similar in the dome for over 10 years but the size needed was so expensive we never felt like it was good stewardship to install one.
One of the key reasons for the change is the feeling of togetherness and life that we experience in a smaller space. Some of you have found it difficult to find a seat at the 10:30am service, but we are getting better at managing the space and have taken out the less comfortable folding chairs for the larger cushioned ones. Our 8:30am service offers people an earlier service that is not crowded, yet.
As a kid, I went to church in the “square dome” and restoring this room further brings back many good memories of being a part of this church family before the dome existed.
Sometime soon we will begin dreaming about what God has in mind for reworking and remodeling the inside of the dome. We will let you know how you can be a part of the process. We will be looking at small improvements like painting hand rails, all the way to large dreams of moving walls and creating a space within the superstructure. I think this process will be really fun.
I have a hunch that we are going to need the dome and the space it affords on Sunday mornings in the future, and we continue to seek the Lord and try to hear His voice and His leading for these things. In the meantime, the space is available still to host community events and we’re loving having people on our property that we otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to meet.
Thanks so much church family for your flexibility as we steadily make improvements. We’re looking forward to seeing you Sunday, either at 8:30 or 10:30.