Welcome to York, LCBC!

It’s official now,  LCBC church is starting a York campus in 2011.  You can read the newspaper article here.   I want to welcome them to York county, not because they need my “welcoming” or permission to enter York County :-), but I genuinely love and respect this church.  Our family attended LCBC Manheim for 18months while we prepared to launch actionchurch and found it to be inspiring and refreshing in every way.  If you’d like to read some stuff I’ve blogged about LCBC in the past you can go here, here, here, or here.

There’s a couple reasons I wanted to welcome them to York County.   The first is because they are moving in the empty Saturn dealership on Rt. 30.  I love that building.   I could see that it would be a great church in a great location.   I’ve walked around it…prayed around it…peeked in the windows.  I said “if we don’t do church here someone should”.  I thought it might set vacant for a long time so earlier this year we put a “low ball” offer  (believe me, it was a LOT to us, but still low to them:-)) to lease it on Sunday Mornings for actionchurch. It was a crazy thing to do but I believe in “perhaps” faith…   They turned us down and said it was being sold.   We found out last month that it was being purchased by LCBC.  I’ll be honest with you, when I heard the news if felt a little bit like hearing from your best friend in high school that they just got a date with the girl of their dreams…only to find out it’s the same girl you’ve been crushing on since 6th grade.  You’re happy for them, but still a little bummed. 

I’m writing this to say I AM Happy that LCBC “got the girl” :-) …that they are coming to York County.  They have the resouces and vision to make the Saturn building a place where thousands of York Countians will hear about Jesus in a relevant and creative way.  They’ve been working hard as a church for over twenty years to get to the point that they can seize great opportunities like this.  Someone on our “kingdom team” just hit a home run!   I’m bad with baseball analogies but I’m still sure that’s a good thing.

There’s another reason I want to welcome LCBC  to York.  It’s even more “inside”.  Its personal.  I was sitting in the audience at LCBC when they first announced that they were going to be opening other campuses.  They mentioned potential locations in York, Harrisburg, and Reading.  I was a recently fired doofus, with a dream of starting a new church in York County but absolutely NO prospects or resources to do so.  When I heard Pastor David say that they had a dream of a campus in York, my first thought was that maybe I was wrong about my calling to start actionchurch.   If LCBC was going to start a York Campus, maybe we should just volunteer to help instead of starting something else.  I knew I wasn’t qualified to do much,  but I was pretty sure at least they would need people in orange vests to park cars.  (Actually I’d probably be pretty terrible at that, too.)

I remember the day they announced that their first campus was going to be located in Harrisburg.  I remember the mixture of fear, anticipation, nausea, and reassurance I felt as I “heard”  again that Michele and I were indeed called to start a new church in York.   So that’s the final reason I want to welcome LCBC to York in 2011.  I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to step out on our “own” if they would have arrived in 2007.   Maybe we would have volunteered to help out instead of starting actionchurch.  Maybe I would be “head orange vest parking guy” by now.  Maybe I wouldn’t have had so many sleepless nights and gray hair!!!  Maybe I would have missed the opportunity to speak with all of you each week.  Maybe I would have missed out on the lives changed and the miracles that have happened through the “church I love”.  I just can’t imagine not being part of what God is doing, and will do in the future, at actionchurch. 

So Welcome to York, LCBC.  I’m glad your coming…now.

3 thoughts on “Welcome to York, LCBC!

  1. We live in Hellam and have been members of Christ Community Church in Camp Hill for 16 years. The drive has really started wearing on us and been praying for a home church closer. Glad to hear you are coming to York