Matt Payne

The Church Website Guide Blog has been researching stats for church websites over the past several months.  Their research is very helpful!  They asked if they could use Church! at bethany as a case study and their first two posts are up about us.  You can check the posts out here and here:

The church has signed up with 360Hubs and I’m testing something out with my blog post. I’ll share more later as we roll it out over the next few weeks. Its going to be REALLY cool!

Church! at bethany will be three years old in the Fall.  We have met at a Middle School for most of that time.  We feel that God is leading us to move forward in trying to find a 24/7 facility.  We have a space that we think would be great however when you crunch the numbers our rent would increase 3x.

I’m caught in the tension between having faith and being good stewards.  

On one hand if God is in it then He will provide. In Genesis 12:1, God told Abraham to, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.”

On the other hand Jesus said in Luke 14:28-30, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish‘”

I’m sure there is a balance and we’re trying to find it.

Please patient with me as I migrate my blog to Wordpress.  Jenni is helping me out.  I need to change the photos on the header though!

Since the economy is still pretty bad in Oregon we are looking at some potential properties in the area. There are no facilities in the area of “Bethany” except for schools and there probably won’t be for at least 5 years. We have expanded our search area and have found a great location. The owner is very motivated to lease the space.

Even at the deep discount price the cost for a 24/7 is a lot more than we are paying now for the school. What’s really cool is that a local church that meets on Saturday night is very interested in partnering with us on the space! With their partnership this might just happen!

Here are some photos: