Good morning, My Dear Friends,
We are only a couple of weeks away from moving to our brand-new church campus in Lake Wylie, one that is centrally located within our field of mission. We’ve been fortunate and blessed to have been at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary the last nine years, but it will be nice to begin adjusting to ministry in our forever church home.
I have heard that athletes always perform better when they play on their home field. In ACC basketball, they say it’s worth four points to play on your home court. In NBA basketball, they say it’s worth five points. Teams always seem to do better on their home field.
I once heard an interesting story that happened several years ago down in South Georgia. The little college of Georgia Southern fielded a football team for the first time about ten years ago. They hired a coach named Erik Russell.
When that team goes out to practice, they have to cross a little creek that goes right by their practice field. The third year that Russell was there, his team went to the playoffs, and they had to go to North Dakota to play. Their game was against a team that had won a couple of national championships. Georgia Southern had only played football for three years! They were used to playing in front of maybe 1,000 fans; this game would have 50,000 in the stands and a television audience. Every one of the players was nervous and scared.
When they arrived in North Dakota, the coach knew that when they crossed that stream back home to go to practice, they always knew, “This is our field.” Coach Russell brought with him a big jar of water from Statesboro, Georgia, and he carried it to North Dakota. Before they went on the field, he took his whole team out there to watch, and he walked around, sprinkling water all over that field, there in North Dakota. He said, “This is South Georgia water, from Statesboro, Georgia. We have watered this field — now it’s our field.” And they won the national championship.
Now, every game they play out-of-town, some of the players take a jug of water with them and sprinkle the field before they play. “We never play on anybody else’s field,” they say.
God has prepared the land on Highway 55 for Imagine Church, and even before we turned the first spade of dirt two years ago, we knew we would be on our home field. May we always be victorious as we minister and serve in Christ’s name.
We will soon be at home,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
