When I first heard that our church was thinking about relocating, I had very mixed feelings. Being on staff at Mission Hills, it was easy to see that we were busting at the seams. There was often something going on in virtually every corner of the building almost any given day. Adequate space was a very real problem.
And then there were issues of the facility looking run-down and in need of a face lift. But on the flip side, the very same building held so many memories for me and had been such a part of the fabric of my life. It was here that I gave my life to Christ sitting on the east lawn, underneath a crab apple tree on a warm summer evening at vacation bible school. It was here that I was baptized, met my husband, got married, raised my kids . . . and on and on and on.
After some reflection, I have come to realize that it is not really the actual, physical building that has touched my life, even though the building does hold memories. It is being part of God’s family here at Mission Hills that has impacted my life . . . the people, not the building or its surroundings, and I realized that the people of Mission Hills are mobile. We can move from one place to another without changing our history, or who God has called us to be, or who He wants us to become. Our mission has always been to reach our world with the Good News of God’s love, and if we need to move to better accomplish this mission, then so be it. Mission Hills Church has never been, nor will it ever be, defined by the building that houses it, rather by the hearts that it impacts and the lives that it transforms. May we always be more concerned with our mission than our building. I'm excited to see what God has in store for us.
Laura
