Sunday January 25 was the end ofa six year journey for the church I serve, ClearView Baptist Church Franklin Tennessee…no not the end of my job but the end to a building project which included a new master plan and getting the whole project approved by the City. The most recent phase that we completed included: 16 preschool classrooms, indoor playground for preschoolers, children’s worship space for 250, youth space for 350 and a second worship venue that will seat 450.

ClearView now has two worship venues, the original seats 810 and now the new one 450. The plan starting this week is to continue two worship services in ‘venue 1’ at 9:30 and 11:00 AM and then add a service in ‘venue 2’ at 9:30. I never dreamed 27 years ago, when I started full-time ministry that we could have simultaneous services happening on the same campus and send the sermon from one to the other by video…times they are a changing.

“Venue 1” the original is really a gym that was designed so that it could be a very effective worship center each week. The great part about this space is that it is used seven days a week for a multitude of activities: sports, worship, dinner, housing homeless during the winter and many other things. I believe ClearView is being good stewards of this space.

“Venue 2” even though it was designed to look like a traditional ‘chapel’ with stage, vaulted ceilings and windows with inlaid crosses, it also was designed to be flexible space. The intent is to use it many different ways and fill it up as often as possible. Just this past week ‘venue 2’ was able to be the meeting place for our DNOW weekend for middle school and high school students. With just some minor effort and some added lights, the room looked totally ‘cool’ for the students. This coming Sunday ‘venue 2’ will be the meeting place for our first ever ‘more traditional’ service. Now that is flexibility!!! With this flexibility we are striving to be good stewards of this new space. It is my prayer that we will be open to whatever God wants to take place in this room.