To God be the glory! Today was an historic day for Vantage Church. As I sit in my family room writing this, I am overwhelmed with so many emotions. God is truly on the move in this city and it is hard to put in to words how honoured we are to be a part of it.

Our day started early… VERY early…. we bump in at 6am so needless to say it was still dark when we woke up! We arrived to our venue (a movie theatre complex of 14 cinemas) to meet up with our most amazing team. They were already busy at work and they all had smiles on their faces!! Pretty amazing at 6am BEFORE the coffee run!

There were a few hiccups… to be expected on your first Sunday I guess… but set up went pretty smooth. I watched our team get busy… some setting up the sound system, some blacking out seats and doing seat-drops, some setting up the foyers and making coffee, some setting up our kids rooms…. each role important and a valued part of our team.

As I talked to people throughout the morning, amongst the “task”, it was evident that there was so much anticipation. I asked one of our volunteers how he was feeling and he just simply said “I’m so excited”.

Several weeks ago, when we were planning our launch service, we decided that we wanted to open the service with an item. The song I couldn’t get out of my spirit was “God of this City” by Bluetree and I knew that it was a song that needed to be declared over our city of Toronto. So fittingly, after our pre-roll, we launched into that incredible song and it was powerful as the church declared that “greater things are still to be done in this city”.

We’ve been having acoustic worship services in the lead up to our launch – they were intimate and beautiful and we had some incredible worship moments in our Preview Services. But today we had a BAND!! And I LOVED it!! Bass, drums, electric guitar!!!! Oh how I missed it!!

At the outset of our service we praised and worshipped with all our passion.  And as we led, we watched streams of people walking in, filling up the seats. I got the sense that there were a lot of people there that have been waiting to be able to worship in spirit and in truth for a long time. It is so important to us that we build an atmosphere of engaged, passionate worship and the Holy Spirit responded and moved powerfully!

We were so encouraged this week as we were inundated with emails of support from churches and leaders all over this city and beyond. Many pastors emailed us to say they are praying for us and believing for the best… and today in our service we took the time to dedicate our church to God. A pastor friend of ours came and prayed over our church and committed it to God. The MP of Richmond Hill came and presented us with a gift on behalf of the city of Richmond Hill.

We received an awesome word from my hubby entitled “We’re all in this together” – how with unity of vision and commitment to the House, we can collectively see this city impacted for Jesus. It was a word that was birthed out of Damian’s passion for each person to find their fit in the local church – for people to allow their roots to go down deep, to contribute, to serve and to make church one of their non-negotiables in life.

At the conclusion of our service, we prayed and invited people to receive Christ. We haven’t seen a salvation yet but we’re full of faith and know full well that it’s only a matter of time. As people come and taste and see that the Lord is good, they will not be able to resist Him. And we wait in anticipation and look forward to celebrating when that happens!!

Vantage Church is now a reality – after years of dreaming and planning, God has made the dream a tangible, vibrant house that is passionate about God and passionate about seeing people empowered in life. And we can’t wait to see how the journey unfolds. Only God knows what is in store – but one thing I do know is that the greatest days are ahead of us.

Tags: atmosphere, church, coffee, dream, faith, God, God of This City, Jesus Christ, kids, leadership, passionate, prayer, Preview Night, salvation, team, Toronto, Vantage Church, Vantage Launch, vision, volunteer, worship

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 4:41 pm and is filed under The Vantage Story, Vantage Launch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.