Nehemiah 2:11-12
You may have heard about a third campus coming to Emmanuel! If you’re new to the church, we have two locations. A Flint Campus and a Grand Blanc Campus. The vision of Emmanuel is to multiply by going into different cities and adopting churches that may need help reaching the community. Although the third campus is new to many ears at Emmanuel, it’s been something our lead pastor has known about for some time. Eventually, the staff got word of the possibility, and we were able to openly talk and pray about going forward with it. Now, it has been brought to the church, and we are excited to reveal the location soon, but not yet! These recent changes remind me a lot of how Nehemiah approached change in his life. So far in Nehemiah, we have read about his conviction to help a cause in his hometown. Repairing the walls of an entire city is not an easy or quick project. To do so required a leader like Nehemiah to plan, prep, and execute. In verses 11 and 12, we see Nehemiah keeping the project on the “down low,” so to speak. He stayed in Jerusalem for three days to survey the land, see the damage, and prepare for what needed to be done. We also see that he did so in the middle of the night with only a few others and only one animal. Nehemiah was definitely trying to keep some secrecy about this operation until it was official. Perhaps it was for fear of what those living there would do if they found out prematurely and word got out. One thing we do know is that Nehemiah kept his intentions between himself and God until he had prayed and came up with a logical solution. He did not get ahead of himself and make rash decisions. He took time to pray, investigate, and plan. The time would come for others to know what God laid on his heart to do for his people, but not yet. Back in 2021, we were convinced as a church that God was leading us to the Lapeer area for a second campus. We leaked the information, made a video promoting the possibility of exciting new changes, just for God to close the door. It was definitely a learning curve! As the opportunity for the Grand Blanc Campus came to our attention, it was handled much differently. There was much prayer, planning, meeting, and waiting for God's 100% confirmation before leaking it to the church. Our third campus is much the same. We are in the beginning stages of making the adoption, and things are going well! However, until there is more planning and execution on the back end, the location can not be revealed. In God's time, it will be known! Maybe Nehemiah didn’t want to get the hopes up for people in his hometown. After all, he needed to access the situation and see if repairing the walls was even possible when it came to labor and resources. It’s such an important detail we can miss while reading this amazing book if we aren’t careful. It’s a reminder for us to think before we act! Sometimes when we have exciting news, it’s not for the world to know right away because God may close the door or prepare us further for what's to happen next!
You may have heard about a third campus coming to Emmanuel! If you’re new to the church, we have two locations. A Flint Campus and a Grand Blanc Campus. The vision of Emmanuel is to multiply by going into different cities and adopting churches that may need help reaching the community. Although the third campus is new to many ears at Emmanuel, it’s been something our lead pastor has known about for some time. Eventually, the staff got word of the possibility, and we were able to openly talk and pray about going forward with it. Now, it has been brought to the church, and we are excited to reveal the location soon, but not yet! These recent changes remind me a lot of how Nehemiah approached change in his life. So far in Nehemiah, we have read about his conviction to help a cause in his hometown. Repairing the walls of an entire city is not an easy or quick project. To do so required a leader like Nehemiah to plan, prep, and execute. In verses 11 and 12, we see Nehemiah keeping the project on the “down low,” so to speak. He stayed in Jerusalem for three days to survey the land, see the damage, and prepare for what needed to be done. We also see that he did so in the middle of the night with only a few others and only one animal. Nehemiah was definitely trying to keep some secrecy about this operation until it was official. Perhaps it was for fear of what those living there would do if they found out prematurely and word got out. One thing we do know is that Nehemiah kept his intentions between himself and God until he had prayed and came up with a logical solution. He did not get ahead of himself and make rash decisions. He took time to pray, investigate, and plan. The time would come for others to know what God laid on his heart to do for his people, but not yet. Back in 2021, we were convinced as a church that God was leading us to the Lapeer area for a second campus. We leaked the information, made a video promoting the possibility of exciting new changes, just for God to close the door. It was definitely a learning curve! As the opportunity for the Grand Blanc Campus came to our attention, it was handled much differently. There was much prayer, planning, meeting, and waiting for God's 100% confirmation before leaking it to the church. Our third campus is much the same. We are in the beginning stages of making the adoption, and things are going well! However, until there is more planning and execution on the back end, the location can not be revealed. In God's time, it will be known! Maybe Nehemiah didn’t want to get the hopes up for people in his hometown. After all, he needed to access the situation and see if repairing the walls was even possible when it came to labor and resources. It’s such an important detail we can miss while reading this amazing book if we aren’t careful. It’s a reminder for us to think before we act! Sometimes when we have exciting news, it’s not for the world to know right away because God may close the door or prepare us further for what's to happen next!
Posted in Devotional