I always love shows about home renovation where the old house that is falling in on itself gets remodeled to become a like-new, top-of-the-line house by the end of the show. In the first half of these shows the camera always reveals the dirty corners and worst problems of the house: the leaky ceiling, the large hole in the side of the wall and floor, the rotten wood, the ant infestation...
Our church building could have been on one of those shows. When people ask about our building, I've often heard our pastor, John, say that the before and after pictures should really be "scratch and sniff" because the moldy walls gave the place such a stank*.
Here's a video we put together to show how far that building has come. It lacks pictures from the very beginning, but it will give you a good idea how far we have come.
In many ways the reconstruction on the building has mirrored the re-planting of The Stone Church. As we've torn away the mold and the rot and replaced it with healthy walls and a sturdy roof, we've moved as a church from near extinction to having a crowd filled with new faces and people forming new relationships every week.
Our little church building can use a lot more reconstruction and will probably always need improving, just as we ourselves will need constant improving and maintenance. But as long as we are heading in the right direction and the smell is getting better, I'm happy.
*stank, in this instance, is used to denote a smell that is so unpleasant that it has moved from the present form (i.e. stink), bypassed the commonly used past form (i.e. stunk) and moved onto the lesser used, but more potent form.
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