C3 New Meeting Space Announcement

Um but at the beginning of 2025, um at the beginning of last year or this year, we really began looking for a permanent space to meet.

Um and so here's a list of actually some of the places we've been.

Um all of these did not work.

They either said no, they were too expensive, too small, um, would force us to go to like two services with like 60 in one, 60 in another.

Uh East Memphis, Cordova, Germantown, Midtown, we looked all over the place.

We have been busy looking.

We have updated you, haven't updated you enough, but we have looked and been looking.

And we began looking for space, um, permanent space, not only because we want a permanent location, but because we began feeling this year more than ever that the school would rather us not be here.

And I think today is the first time in the year that we haven't had like going on outside on the roof.

Um and so while we actually do have a good relationship with the faculty of this school, um, we felt like from the city uh that they were wanting things to change.

And so they began making some things a little more challenging for us to be here.

Uh, it began when they took away some of our classroom space that we had for our kids, and so now our kids have to meet in the hallway.

Then they took away some of our storage space back there because we couldn't use that anymore.

Then they increased the monthly rent.

Um and then three weeks ago, uh Tommy and I got a pretty aggressive email from somebody in the city that told us to remove all of our stuff, all of our storage space here that we had.

You have to get your stuff out of the premises every single week and get it out of there.

That we're in violation of the lease agreement.

And when we showed them the original agreement to say that, like, hey, we are actually abiding by what was given to us, they were like, Well, sorry, you don't have that anymore.

It's not in the original lease agreement.

The principal gave you that space, she doesn't have the authority to do that, so you can't have that space, get your stuff out.

And we're like, okay.

And so that was that.

Uh so our team has been loading in and loading out from trailers and cars uh over the past few weeks and uh using the storage garage, which is actually my garage.

Here's my garage.

There it is.

Uh thanks.

Um but all of these restrictions have made us feel like that something was coming, and so we began looking and looking and harder looking for space because we had this suspicion that there might be a point where we would not be able to renew our contract here at the school, and it turns out that time is now.

We cannot renew our contract here at the school, and we have two weeks to get out.

And so we will meet here today and next Sunday, and then we have to find a new space to meet on January 4th.

And thankfully, uh the Lord was just kind to us, and none of the 25 locations that we looked at worked, but we found a church that was actually sent to me by Daniel Byrd, sent me a church, like, reach out to this church.

And um, so we reached out to a church and we uh made an agreement with them and we finally got a space to meet.

And so there's the first picture of it.

Um I think we have a picture of the sanctuary as well.

Just the next slide.

There we go.

There's a sanctuary.

This is being received really well.

Hey, you know I just preached God's word to you, right?

I'm gonna start asking for rounds of applause in the middle of it.

That point was good, right?

Uh this is Restoration Fellowship Church.

It's on the corner of Estate in Quince, it's in East Memphis, it's about eight minutes from here.

Um here are the kids' classrooms, which are amazing.

Uh those are the kids' classrooms.

Go to the next one.

That's that's that one.

Yeah.

You don't have to clap for all of them unless you just want to.

I I receive it.

I receive it.

I love it.

Um those are the kids' classrooms.

The benefits of this building for us, specifically, the benefits are we do not have to set up or tear down ever.

This church has always been set up and teared down for 13 years.

We do not have to do that anymore.

And so uh we can store all of our stuff on the stage, we can store all of our stuff in the kids' classrooms.

Um, I mean, we got to put up like a handful of signs, but Colin's got that.

He's gonna be great, it's gonna be great.

Um we we get four kids' classrooms, and so we won't have to meet in the hallway anymore, uh, which is amazing.

And I actually have room for eight classrooms if we actually need that space, which I hope one day that we do.

Um, the kids can play with the toys in the classroom.

There's no more don't touch that.

Um so that's that's good.

Um there's plenty of room for growth.

The sanctuary, go to the yeah, the sanctuary.

Oh, it's right there.

The sanctuary holds uh it can it has 300 chairs total.

That's about 140 chairs that are set up, and so that'll be good for us.

Um, but then we could add plenty of room for growth.

Um there's spaces for uh other classrooms and things that we can have throughout the week, and we can expand our ministry on Wednesday night and our prayer room and so many things that we've been wanting to do for so long and just not having the ability to get in a space to do that.

So we're excited for that.

And then it just saves money.

The cost is cheaper, it's cheaper than this school.

Like we get this school for four hours, and we're gonna we can have this one throughout the week.

They gave me a key.

I was like, Are you sure?

This is amazing.

I've never had a key, I've been waiting for somebody to show up and let me in.

And so, um, yeah, and so so many, so many benefits.

The only change is that there's a church that still meets in this building.

Uh, it's smaller than ours, but they still meet in this building and it's theirs, and they were kind enough to allow us to meet in there.

And so the change that it will affect is they're going to meet, they're gonna move their service to meet at 11, and our service has to move to 9 a.m.

Has to move at nine a.

Well, 9.01.

We're gonna make it cool.

You don't have to clap for that.

I know everybody's like, you know what I mean?

The um, as we were, so our elders met and we we also met with the worship team and the staff and all these different things.

The conversation was like, we would love to continue meeting at 1015, but honestly, that's not an option.

Like, we don't have that choice.

And so, he, what's our options?

Because we thought about doing a survey.

I'm like, what would we survey?

There's no other option.

The option is do you want to not meet or do you want to meet at nine?

And I was like, I'd rather meet at nine.

Like, I like us, I like what we do.

And so, right now, that is that is our option, and that's that's what we're moving towards.

And so the elders got together with again, with the consideration of the staff and the volunteers and everybody.

I was like, we want this to be unanimous because it is a significant decision.

But at the end of the day, do we want to not meet or we want to meet at nine?

Because that's the only option we have.

It was unanimous.

We want to meet.

And so we signed a year lease with this church uh to begin.

We'll be there January 4th.

Uh, that will be our first Sunday there.

First Sunday, January 4th, we'll start at 9, 9.01 a.m.

Um, brand some things.

Some of y'all are guests, and you're like, I don't know.

Um, but I do we I do want to say, like, I I'm sorry that it it shifts us to earlier, but this is going to like the the space itself, it's beautiful and it's clean, and it's a church.

And not that this hasn't been great for us because I'm so thankful, but like it's gonna benefit us in so many different ways.

And so I know that it's harder to, I mean, Lord, we started the room at 1015 and there was like six people in the seats, and so I don't know what it's gonna look like at nine, but we we want you to continue to come and join us for this thing.

We love you, we love what the Lord is doing through this church, and we want you to be a part of that, and we don't want to lose anybody because we move at nine, but I do recognize that it's earlier.

Uh, but think like you you'll get to lunch before everybody else, you'll get you'll get to brunch if they do brunch.

I actually have a list of restaurants here.

That opens before 11, that one opens at 11.

Like, guys, and then you get your whole day back.

You're not this is my sermon's not gonna cut into any football.

Like, it's it's gonna be great.

All right.

Anyways, we are excited.

Uh, it is gonna be a benefit.

Uh again, it's uh first Sunday, we'll be there January 4th at 9.

Um, we'd love for you to be there.

We love you.

I'd love to answer any questions you might have about this um thing if I can.

And so if there are any questions from the group, just be loud.