One Church, One Assembly

We announced to the Legacy congregation yesterday our intentions to go from two Sunday morning assemblies to one single weekly assembly once we move into the new worship center in late July / early August. For the Pipeline-Legacy Church of Christ, it’ll be the first time in over 18 years that the entire church family will come together on Sunday mornings to worship God and encourage each other.

It’ll be the first time:

that the whole church family will regularly worship together in the same room at the same time.
the whole church participates in the baptisms
the whole church is introduced to new members
the whole church participates in baby blessings / dedications
the whole church participates in special events such as Senior Sunday and missionary send-offs

I’m excited to be able to regularly participate in a thousand-member choir, joining with so many brothers and sisters in raising our voices and our hearts to God in song. I’m looking forward to the energy and the excitement and the enthusiasm of the larger crowd. I’m glad for the lowered utility costs, the uniform start times, and the increased flexibility in planning special events.

But mostly, I’m looking forward to an abundance of opportunities to sacrifice and share and learn from one another.

Right now, we are two different churches. To ignore that fact is to ignore the truth. Our 8:30 assembly is much different in style and dynamic and approach than our 10:45 service. We sing the same songs and do things in the same order for each service. But they’re different. Very different. Sometimes the clock will determine that we leave out a song or two during first service. Different people will pray differently, read Scripture differently, approach communion differently, and even react to the sermon differently. Not only that but, especially since we meet in 37 homes now on Sunday nights in Legacy Small Groups Church, there are huge groups of people who don’t ever meet or converse or interact in any way with their own brothers and sisters who attend the other assembly. We never see each other. As a result of all those things, we really are two different churches.

The first-service people could learn a whole lot by spending more time with the second-service people.

And the second-service people could learn a whole lot by spending more time with the first-service people.

If we were to stay with two separate assemblies, we’d each be able to stay completely comfortable. No change. No sacrifice. No bending. No thinking about others.

Now we’ll all, every one of us, have to make some changes and have to sacrifice a little to make this happen. Some of us, as was mentioned yesterday, will have to wake up a half hour earlier. Some of us will have to get used to not being the very first ones in line at Luby’s. The good news is we all will have to put the needs of others ahead of our own. We’ll each have to consider others better than ourselves. We’ll have to share a pew. We’ll have to get re-acquainted. It’s a win-win situation for growing spiritually with each other as a family.

And when our Lord blesses us with more baptisms and more families and more people and we’re forced to move back to two services, it’ll be that much more wonderful. Whether it’s in six-months or six-years, we’ll do so with an increased unity and a renewed sense of community and family within our body of believers at Legacy. And we’ll look back fondly on whatever period of time we met in one single assembly, glad for the experiences, happy for the memories, and more selfless and sacrificial servants because of it.

Here are the very latest pictures of the inside of the worship center. As always, click on the pic to get the full size.

The Legacy Quilters met for the first official time this morning in their area of the brand new Youth & Benevolence Center. When Kent wasn’t harassing them about no-parking lanes and I wasn’t bugging them to pose for pictures, they actually got a lot of work done today.

Peace,

Allan