The Domino Effect (or How Youth Ministry Changed My Life)

My life has been in disarray since the end of last year.

It's Tommy Wafford's fault.

Tommy is the Student Minister at TrueNorth Church. Last year, our Youth Ministry (Element Student Ministries) began busting at the seams and our 2500 square foot building (The Depot) was quickly becoming too small. Tommy and I began scouting out other potential locations for Element. This went on for months until I contacted the owners of a nearly 13,000 square foot building three miles down the road from our office complex. Surprisingly, the lease was affordable. (A HUGE God thing, by the way.) Element needed more space but not 12,800 square feet. The logical thing for us to do was to move Element AND our offices to the new building. Fast forward to February.

By February we moved our offices into a newly renovated building. (Lots of God stories involved during those two months as well.) I have a lot of books at home and at my office. I decided not to move all of my office books to the new location so I brought them home. I'm not sure how many books exactly but there are currently 27 stacks of books in my son's former bedroom floor with an average of 15 books per stack. That's 405.

405 more books at our house. Where would they go? Bookshelves, of course. The dominoes start falling:

Element Student Ministry outgrows space.
New location found for students and church offices.
Because I have to relocate my office, I bring books from my old office home.
We need new bookshelves.
We go to IKEA in Charlotte TWICE to look at and purchase bookshelves.
We, more specifically, my wife, decides that we can't put new bookshelves in the living room the way it is.
We go to Lowe's to look for paint.
We go to Lowe's again, buy a sample color, paint a small swatch on the wall, and look at it for weeks.
Beth decides we need a new chandelier in the dining room. Add another Saturday afternoon to this project.
We buy another sample color. We stare at two swatches on the dining room wall for a couple of weeks.
We buy a third sample color. Third swatch on wall applied.
We decide to paint our living room and dining room "Butter."
We begin the project. (See bad picture below.)
As of last night, I have one more door to paint before the job is complete.

Oh yeah, I still have to assemble the IKEA bookshelves too.

And put 405+ books on the shelves.

There is a rug coming soon and probably a new chair. Pictures to hang. The project is not over yet.

Isn't it funny how one things leads to the other? God blesses a youth ministry. He blesses the church with a new facility. And I find myself in a home renovation project!

Thanks Tommy! And thank God!