Building Dedication Sunday (Phase 2)

THANKING LEADERS Good morning! My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor here at Renovation Church If you’re visiting for the first time today, this will be a very different sort of a message as we are taking an entire service to Dedicate this Building Expansion to the Lord! And so before anything or anyone else, we praise God for this day! He has been so so good to this church. Secondly, I want to thank all of you for your sacrifices. So many of you played such a significant role in getting our church to this moment. Many of you made financial sacrifices (and still are!) to this project. Many of you dedicated so much of your time and energy to make this building what it is I want to say a special thank you to some groups of people! At this point, I want to invite on stage our architects from Station 19 Nicole, Dan, and Christina And I also want to invite on stage our General Contractors from BJ Baas Brian Baas Ben Shawn Curt Jordan And Rick We are so thankful for you all. To Station 19, we were so grateful to work with you as all they do is churches and ministries… And so they brought a lot of expertise to this project like the widening of our kids’ hallways and knowing how to expand our parking lot…which were both huge issues in Phase 1. Nicole, their president, we appreciate your heart for God’s capital C church. And Dan and Christina your heart for our ministry and the detail you brought to each room and each color was so appreciated. To BJ Baas, we were so excited to work with you AGAIN for Phase 2. That was a no brainer for us after your spectacular work on Phase 1. Curt, our job site supervisor worked some almost 20 hour days out here somedays I think. And then Jordan towards the end of the project Our church has benefited from both of your guys’ meticulous care over this building. Shawn has been our main contact and now project manager guy for almost 4 years now, and is a friend to so many of us on staff. Ben, we thank you for your financial oversight. Rick, has been influencing this building since we originally broke ground in 2020! And Brian Baas, the president of BJ Baas, in so many ways this building exists because of you. In 2019, when we couldn’t find anyone to build it at a price we could afford, you came in and saved the day. I want you to know that since we opened this building the first time, just 3 years ago, 360 people have given their lives to Christ for the first time! Thank you for your eternity changing impact! Let’s give them a round of applause! You all can have a seat. I also want to quickly bring up two more groups. Our design team of Kiah Ortman Alexa Rickenbach Zach Foty And I want to bring up our Church Building Team: Rachel Cheney Ryan Speck Mike Northquest and Brian Prunty (who unfortunately is out of town today) When you look around the building and you think, “Wow, that looks beautiful! You can thank not only our architects, but this design team, who did such amazing work to make this a modern, yet beautiful, and God glorifying building Kiah has been designing beautiful things for our church and building for 7 years now, and we so appreciate her Alexa brought great insight and fresh new ideas to our team. And Zach, who is our Worship Leader, but also helped with many design things, because…he’s good at everything…and has been for a long time. Zach was actually my very first hire when I started this church in 2009 (I actually messaged him on MySpace to meet for an interview) But Zach is a perfectionist (in a good way), and he is always pushing us to do it better… And we all benefit from that. Our Church Building Team is the team that represented you all in our church’s work with Station 19 and BJ Baas And they were amazing. Mike, our finance director…we are blown away and humbled to have someone of your expertise on our team. What a blessing! Ryan, has spent many nights here to 1am making sure things got done…unbelievable dedication to our church, and the Lord. Brian Prunty, who couldn’t be here, was our resident architect from our church And not a single person put more work into this project than our leader Rachel Cheney…and she deserves so much of the credit for this building expansion. And let’s honor these people (clap) You can have a seat. VOLUNTEERING A couple of quick things before we hop into Esther in the Bible. (Serve with Renovation Church slide) The last couple of weeks we have been talking about the need for more people to serve as our church continues to expand very quickly and increase our scope of ministry. And I can’t tell you enough how critical this. The people we are able to reach for Christ are reached because people have picked up an oar. They are reached because of the ministry that happens from the parking lot, to the greeters, to Kids Ministry. And we need you. We need YOU! (Put up serving Needs slide) As you can see, we still need 191 volunteers! And if you will allow me to challenge you for a moment (which you do every week), let me also say this. While many of you are seeking out God for the first time, I also have met many of you in the lobby the past few months who have even told me, “I was at another church, but it was too much consumerism for me…the topics, the fog machine, the you name it” And people often add, “But I love this church because of the Bible teaching, and the classes and so on” And I want to challenge you to beware of switching from one form of consumerism to another. From entertainment consumerism to educational consumerism. Because that’s what that is. If you merely walk in and then walk out of here every week…that’s just Christian educational consumerism. But when you read the New Testament, that’s not the church. Jesus Christ modeled serving for us by picking a towel and washing feet. And then he said: (John 13:15) – NIV I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. And so as Christ followers, when we are a part of a church body, the Bible calls us to use our gifts to serve His body. This is not a cruise ship, it’s a row boat. We serve together to reach our community. And so, if you’ve been here a couple of months, 6 months, a year…and you haven’t stepped forward yet in this aspect of Christian spiritual maturity... It’s time…to pick up a towel, or pick up an oar. People need you. The church body needs you. And the many lost people who walk in here every single week…they need you. So use that QR code on the big sheet, or better yet, go see what the biggest needs are out on that pegboard…and step forward today, okay? Okay! GRAND OPENING And let me say one more thing… I know this is the longest introduction I’ve ever had in 14 years, but it’s a special day, okay?! 😊 We have our Building Dedication Sunday today, and then NEXT Sunday…we’re having Grand Opening (Grand Opening Slide) And here’s the difference: today…is a time for our people to celebrate. The Grand Opening is a time for the community to come in The main reason we’re doing a Grand Opening of our building expansion is because Grand Openings are one of THE most effective evangelistic outreaches that a church can possibly do. People feel like they can visit on that day because everybody else will be visiting…and they will be checking it out together. And so we are trying to absolutely cover this outreach in prayer. (30,000 Minutes of Prayer slide) If you didn’t get one of our these prayer packets last week, you can get one from a greeter at the Worship Center door after the service today. They have 7 invite cards… And we believe that if the majority of us prayer over people we want to invite for 3 minutes a day, we can cover this VERY important outreach with 30,000 minutes of prayer So pray the impossible, and then walk out in faith and invite someone to come with you to hear about Jesus next week. (to second service: Also, we think this service might be VERY packed next week, so if you can make 3rd, that helps open seats up…you certainly don’t have to, but if you can, it helps!) ESTHER / PURIM Okay, thank you. Let’s open the Bible together. Esther 9:20 – 10:3 Page 345 We are in our very last week of our 8 week series through the book of Esther. It’s been the story of the Jewish Exile, Esther, who surprisingly was elevated to Queen of Persia. And her enemy Haman got the King of Persia to issue a decree to kill all of the Jews. But eventually Esther speaks up, Haman is found out, and everything is reversed. And as we read last week, a decree goes out from Esther’s cousin Mordecai (and the King) allowing the Jews to defend themselves…and they’re not killed. And so there is much rejoicing. Let’s join the story at verse 20 of chapter 9. (Esther 9:20 28) – NIV 20 Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, 21 to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor. 23 So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. 25 But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. 26 (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. 28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants. And then, in verses 29 through 32, Queen Esther reaffirms all of the things Mordecai said about celebrating Purim. And let’s read the final 3 verses of the book. (Esther 10:1 3) – NIV King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. 2 And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews. The book of Esther! (Esther Series Slide) Okay, what we read today are instructions for the Jews to commemorate what has happened by starting an annual holiday, which they are going to call Purim. Pur (P.U.R.) is the persian word for lot…and the plural form of “lot” is Purim. And the lots were like the dice that the villain Haman cast in chapter 3 to see which day he was going to have all of the Jews killed on. And Haman threw the dice in the 1st month of the year, but they landed on the month of Adar, the 12th month. So the Jews had 11 months to prepare for this. And of course, God intervenes in that time period. So by naming the annual holiday Purim, it’s a call for believers to always remember that it’s God that directs even the little things… …even the things as small as the roll of a di. And what’s amazing is that Purim is still regularly celebrated by the Jews today. Jews typically begin their celebration with a fast on the 13th of the month of the month of Adar They fast on the 13th because that’s the day the lot (or the Pur) originally fell on…for them to be killed. And this fast, from sunrise to sunset of that day is called the Fast of Esther. It’s to help believers remember the importance of the fasting that Esther, Mordecai, and the other Jew’s did when they called on God for help And then, at sunset, the celebrating begins. Typically, it starts with a reading of the book of Esther at your local synagogue. And while the story is read, listeners are told that whenever the name of Haman is read, they are to yell, boo, or hiss to blot out his name. And children are often given noisemakers. And then, the next morning and throughout that next day… …they obey just what verse 22 of chapter 9 says. (Esther 9:22b) – NIV He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor. It’s also really common to make Hamantaschen cookies… (Hamantaschen cookies) Which are a triangle shaped filled cookies that are supposed to look like Haman’s ears. It’s also quite common for people to dress in costumes…as the whole story of Esther is about how God works, not out in the open, but in disguise, behind the scenes. It’s pretty neat. In fact, I want to encourage you to even celebrate Purim this Spring with your family. Celebrate Purim March 13 14, 2025 Maybe even put those dates in your calendar on your phone so you can have a reminder. My family and I have done this before. We read the story of Esther, and the kids booed whenever we said Haman. My wife made cool triangle shaped cookies, and the kids wore costumes. It was actually a lot of fun. And why not do this? I mean, think about it… As Americans, even American Christians, we put all of this effort into celebrating Halloween and Valentine’s Day… And, why? Because Hallmark wants us to? I’m not saying to tell your kids to stop giving out Spiderman Valentines… But I am saying, the thing about getting your family to start a Purim tradition…or we’ve celebrated Pentecost before (which is actually a pretty big holiday for other Christians around the world) The thing about those holidays is that they actually build our faith into your kids and grandkids. And they give us annual markers to ensure we remember. That we remember what God did! And that’s the whole point of why Esther and Mordecai started Purim. It was so God’s people would never forget. (Building Dedication Sunday) And that’s the point of doing a Building Dedication Sunday. We need to remember, and never forget, what God has done with this church. PAUSING TO REMEMBER And God has been working miracles since the day we started this church in 2009. And often, they’ve been similar miracles to the Book of Esther…it’s God working behind the scenes. And like Esther and Purim, it’s important that we remember what God has done. That’s one of the reasons we named all our adult classrooms after the different seasons of our church’s life. And in each room, you can read the signs that tell the stories of the amazing miracles God did in that season to get us here. In fact, before we talk a bit more about what God has done in this past year and a half, I want to bring some of you up to speed on the amazing things God did for us from 2009 to early 2023. In February of 2023, we played a video that showed the history of some of the amazing things God had done in our church up to that point. And believe it or not, 1 out of 3 of you in this room are new since we played that video just 17 months ago. So I want to show it to you. And even if you’ve seen it before, it’s awesome. Take a look at our story. (History Video) (Building Dedication Sunday) Amazing. So that is where we were about a year and a half ago. And at the same time, we were running out of room in Phase 1 of our building…fast. There was one Sunday, in 2nd service where I was a few minutes into my message, and I watched a family of 5 walk down the aisle looking for seats. They walked all the way to the front, and then walked back down the aisle and right out of our worship center to leave because they couldn’t find 5 open seats together. I watched it all happen while I was teaching, and I was so visibly frustrated by it that I actually said out loud to the whole church what had just happened…and then it took me 20 seconds or so to regain my composure. I just want people to meet Jesus… And it was so painful to watch people missing out. But as soon as I mentioned what happened, some of our amazing Usher volunteers jumped up and literally ran after the family. They caught the family in the lobby and worked with them to check a few of their kids into our kids’ program, and then the remaining 2 or 3 of them came back into the worship center as some amazing people made room and others went into our then Overflow Room to make more room. And then that day, we had a baptism service with, as always, powerful testimonies, and later when I gave the Gospel, the mother of that family that couldn’t find a seat, stood up and gave her life to Christ. And that right there, is reason #1 of why we needed to expand this building. And so in February of 2023, we set out to raise $4,000,000 through our Illuminate Project (Illuminate Series Slide). And you all were so incredibly sacrificial. Our goal was 4 million, but we saw 5.1 million pledged. Unreal. And so many of you gave early, which allowed us to break ground quickly. And Illuminate is still happening by the way. It’s 36 months of giving, and crazy enough, we’re not even halfway through. And we know that giving often trails off as time goes on… And so if you’ve never given to our building fund before, you can actually do that at any time, by just checking “Illuminate” when you give. We were able to break ground on May 31st of 2023 (Groundbreaking Photo) Which was pretty amazing. And then, we went out side to Northpoint Elementary for 4 months. (Northpoint photo #1) And it was hot. And it was windy. And well, one Sunday, even this happened. (inflatable video) (Northpoint Photo #2) But God still moved. People came. 11 people came to Christ, outside on the field. We just did baptisms for some of them the other day! And by October, our Lobby and Worship Center were ready for us to move back in here. Well, kind of. About 4 days before we opened, our lobby looked like this… (September Lobby Photo) And we had almost 100 of you in here volunteering every night. And many of you pulled me and said, “We’re not really having our church here on Sunday, are we?” And yet, thanks to your long hours, we got it ready And God moved. (Building Dedication Sunday) We survived the Fall with no seats yet in the back and only 5 kids classrooms. Well, more like 3, and 2 very small rooms in our old adult wing. But God moved. And of course, as we went into 2024, we were able to open up our Kids Wing in January, and then our adult wing with our library, classrooms, and offices in March. And then finish up outside. And with every update, it’s like God is moving even faster here. In fact, in our 14 year history, we’ve actually never grown faster than we have these past 7 months…while we were under construction. Even just this summer, post Easter, we’ve seen another 32 people saved here It’s happening…basically every week. God is moving. And I’m very confident, God is only going to do more! One of our Core values is that we will not rest until every person in this city hears the Gospel. That’s our vision. And we’re going to bring Jesus to this city. It’s happening, and it’s going to continue to happen. And God has used this piece of land, and this building, and this building expansion more than I ever could have dreamed of, when I stood on our portable stage at Northpoint Elementary and started talking about this back in 2014 We said, “When we get a building, God is going to use it…as a tool…for His glory.” And HE HAS. And with this Expansion, he will, even more so. And so we dedicate this building to you, Lord. Let me pray.