After a great deal of prayer, planning, fund raising, and building we will soon be enjoying the blessing of our new pavilion. I want to praise God for this blessing as this draws to completion, we will move into this pavilion debt free! God blessed us with generous donors that gave matching offers that you stepped up and matched and that gave us a tremendous push towards the funds needed to complete this project. I am so grateful for your patience and faithfulness through this process! I am blessed to serve alongside you at Pleasant Grove Baptist.
As we officially “move into” this facility I pray that we will see it as a ministry and outreach opportunity, not something to possess or be possessed by. The heart behind this project has been to do something that would give us the opportunity to reach people in a way that we had not been able to before. This facility will allow us to do casual, nonthreatening events like blue grass pickings and cook-outs where people that don’t generally come to church may feel more comfortable joining us up on the hill at our new pavilion.
I am also certain there will be plenty of interest in using this venue for weddings, birthday parties, and other events. Let us not forget that God has blessed us with this, and we need to hold it in open hands for His use. We will work to be friendly and open with our usage of this facility as well as seek to be good stewards. We will always require that someone from the church be present no matter the event so that we can ensure that God is honored in what takes place up there.
Also, we would be remiss if we did not recall how this project began in its early stages. The basketball court was the first thoughts that led to the pavilion. This court will be dedicated in the memory of Mack Mullinax. This sweet boy that we never got to know is in Heaven today and anything that happens in this facility we hope will honor his memory. God can indeed bring beauty from ashes and we pray that this beauty will honor Mack’s memory and glorify God.
In His Amazing Grace,
Dan