Moving The Office
A couple of months ago Max, the other Intern at the church, and I took a walk. We were thinking about buildings for the church and we knew the situation with the church office – namely that it really was time that it moved out of David and Lis’ house. We were walking around Leith and thought we should pray. So we prayed very quickly. I remember saying “Lord, guide us around in our walk. I pray we would bump into someone that would give us some information that would be really helpful. Amen.”
Simple prayer. We walked around and saw some buildings that had office space and made notes about things to follow up and look into. We were walking down Jane Street, when we saw a building that we both thought looked just like a Vineyard Church. Not sure why because it was clear it was a hair dressing supplies warehouse. We stopped. Then Steve Wright drove past. Steve used to come along to the church here before he got a job with Edinburgh City Mission, which requires him to work on Sundays. ECM is a charity we have had a relationship with for some years. The Leith House group would give food to their basics bank, for example. Max had done some voluntary IT work with them too.
He pulled over when he saw us and shouted over: “What are you disreputable troublemakers (or something to that effect) doing hanging around here? Are you looking for a building?”
We were a little dumbfounded and answered very honestly “Yes we are actually.”
Then he replied, incredibly, “Well we’ve got one. What do you need?”
We had crossed the road by this point and were on his side of the car, intermittently nearly getting run over by large lorries.
“Well we’re looking for office space for the church.”
“We have offices and they are free.” Empty or costless, empty or cost less, I was thinking.
Max already knew the director of ECM, from his voluntary work and so got in touch with him, introducing him to David. David picks up what happened next…
We went to see it straight away we weren’t disappointed. It’s not a brand new office suite, it’s your typical city town house with 1970’s décor and Laurie Hudson the director was offering us two rooms at the top of his building for office space and the meeting room on the middle floor for ministry events. I sensed this was the Lord, but I was tentative because of the financial commitment necessary so we sat on it and prayed about with the leadership team and the directors. Then at the beginning of June Laurie called and asked if I would come and lead their staff morning on the 8th. I went along, did what I had to do and as I was about to leave Laurie came over and said, “I have two rooms standing empty upstairs. You’ve been to see them so I want to know why you haven’t moved in. Is it an issue of finance?” I was embarrassed, but he asked a second time so I said, “Yes money is tight and we’re working to a strict budget”. “OK” he said, “That makes sense because during the prayer time earlier I felt the Lord prompt to say that what both of us do is kingdom stuff. It’s all Kingdom so I want you to go back to your directors, decide on what you can afford and then move in. And even if you come back to me and tell you can’t afford anything – the office is yours because God has blessed us and we just want to pay it forward”. How cool is that!
John Wimber used to say; when God asks you to do something important he often gives you a leg up and that’s exactly what happened here. As a leadership felt that to pay something was integrous so with the director’s help we settled on a figure – and we move in on the 20th July.
Conor Hull
Intern
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