Scary Faith

God led us to reach thousands more for Christ through a capital campaign for a new building. This is our story of walking with God through whirlwinds of uncertainty.  

By Tim Moore 

Faith is scary. At least to me. I know, that sounds odd coming from a pastor. The moment I told one of my elders how scared I was we might bankrupt our church, his response was, “C’mon man, time to practice what you preach!” That’s when I realized our Christian culture has a twisted understanding of the reality of faith.  

To me, faith is more than another term for a belief system. Faith is a bold trust that enables you to step into an unknown future, not knowing if you will succeed or fail. Faith is being mostly sure you heard the voice of God calling you to sell your house and move across the country. Or in my case, faith is believing God is leading you to build a church facility even if you aren’t sure you will have the financial means to pay for it. 

That’s exactly what I felt God leading me toward in 2016. We’d outgrown our current facility while hosting multiple weekend experiences. So, in May, we took a chance on something. We invited our church to support a vision to reach thousands more for Christ through a capital campaign. A step of faith. A step in which we didn’t know how all the other details would fall into place. We just moved with purpose toward what God put in our hearts even though we had no clue how it would go. 

That year, it felt like God was lining everything up for us. We felt the wind of his approval at our backs. We needed several things to happen to move forward with construction, and all of them fell into place that year. God was surely all over this! 

Hundreds of families took a step of faith to give sacrificially to this vision. (We cleared the first hurdle.) Two months later, The Solomon Foundation approved our funding. (Another answer to prayer.) In November, we sold our current building to a family who attended our church. They let us stay and pay rent until our new building was constructed. (Only God!) That December, the city gave us a site permit that allowed us to move dirt to prepare the site for construction. It felt like the wind was carrying us along. 

INTO THE HEADWINDS  

Everything was falling into place . . . until January 2017. Just two weeks after we started moving dirt at our new site, the city staff called and forced us to cease all work there. They said we had a FEMA problem. Let me tell you, that’s something you never want to hear.  

We went through a civil engineering nightmare for the next 18 months. We spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to find a solution to get the city to approve our project. For whatever reason, it felt like they did not want us to build. We almost had to enlist lawyers to settle the matter. It seemed like the tailwind had become a gale-force headwind. 

During that time, we had major internal church drama. Here’s the short version. In a span of several months, I had to let some staff members go for alignment issues. That’s a nice way of saying I faced spiritual mutiny. A few more staff quit because of those decisions.  

While this was going on, an anonymous email sent to over 100 of our leaders alleged a staff pastor had engaged in inappropriate behavior. After a prompt investigation, our elder board determined we needed to let that pastor go. All of this turmoil led to hundreds of people leaving our church that year.  

This took a toll on my soul. My nervous system was on overload. I had panic attacks for the first time in my life. I dealt with emotions that seemed bent on drowning me. It took a year and a half of counseling to get my head above water. Although this was the hardest season I’ve ever had in ministry, I now see God was using it to shape me and make our church healthier. 

SHIFTING WINDS  

In the summer of 2018, the winds suddenly began to shift directions. The city finally allowed us to move forward with the construction project. Internally, things began to level out and our church was ready to advance. Honestly, it felt like God supernaturally parted the waters so we could finally cross over. 

I contacted our general contractor and told him we had the green light to build. And he informed me he would have to rebid the entire project. During that 18-month delay, the entire construction industry changed. The price of labor and materials skyrocketed. 

Without changing a thing in our plans, the price of our project increased by $2.5 million. Gulp! We didn’t have that. You see, it was a massive step of faith before the price went up. Not only did we lose a lot of families and their financial support, but the higher price pushed our project out of reach. A step of faith is one thing, but how can you step across the Grand Canyon?  

I called Doug Crozier, president of The Solomon Foundation, to give him the bad news. At the very least, I thought, I could tell our church the funding fell through to deflect some of the heat.  

Doug said, “If you don’t build now, you never will. We are behind you and will lend you the additional money.”  

Oh no. That didn’t work, I thought. How in the world can we afford an even bigger mortgage? I’m still on the hook.  

Then I called our elder board and told them the new price tag and what Doug Crozier had said. All of them agreed we needed to move forward.  

It’s amazing how everyone else has so much faith to do something when it isn’t their career or financial security on the line. It feels different when you bear the most responsibility as the founding and lead pastor. 

With a lot of prayer, fasting, and the full support of our elders, we made the really scary decision to move forward with the project in August 2018. We held a ground-breaking ceremony a couple months later. We were finally ready to start digging.  

But then along came one of the wettest years on record.   

More delays.  

More costs.  

We finally dug the footers the following spring. And despite all the delays, we could feel the momentum coming back to our church. As the steel went up, so did our excitement for the future. Finally, our vision was moving forward. Nothing could stop us from growing God’s kingdom. 

And then . . . COVID-19 happened. 

God, this isn’t funny, I thought. 

And yet, I imagine God had a huge grin on his face.  

A SCARY RIDE 

God specializes in doing what seems impossible. 

Remember the miracles at the Red Sea and, 40 years later, when the Israelites entered the Promised Land? Also, do you recall Gideon’s 300-person army defeating 120,000 Midianites? God perhaps gets the most glory when we are most dependent upon him. What if we took seriously the call of Scripture to “walk by faith and not by sight?”  

When I was 10 months old, I was fearless. With wobbly knees and weak ankles, I took my first steps. And I fell down a lot. But I kept doing it, and eventually, I learned to walk, run, and leap.  

Somewhere along the way, many of us have lost our adventurous childlike spirit. We are afraid of falling. Even more, we are afraid of the embarrassment of failing. Once we’ve built a safe life, we tend to lose the courage to risk it for something greater.  

We all want our lives to matter. I believe God wants the same thing. He wants to use you and me to change the world—or at least our world. Thankfully, as we peruse Scripture, we quickly discover that God didn’t use the most educated, intelligent, or best-looking. No, God used those who had the faith to respond to his call and step into a scary, unknown future. 

As for us, we moved into our new building in October 2020. We couldn’t advertise opening our new facility due to the spike in COVID numbers. It’s been a scary ride, but somehow God has provided for us. Here we are almost three years later, and we are still watching miracles happen.  

Don’t get me wrong. We still have months where we are in the red. We are learning to trust God for daily provision. At the same time, we are seeing hundreds of people come to Christ. We baptize people nearly every weekend. God is doing something incredible in our community.  

He is writing a story greater than any of us could imagine. But none of this happens without being willing to walk in true faith. To walk by faith is to live in uncertainty. If we choose to live in safety, we will end up with a story that’s not worth telling. Because a story that’s worth telling is a story that’s worth living. 

Tim Moore serves as lead pastor at X Church in Canal Winchester, Ohio, and he is the author of Scary Faith: Overcome Fear and Step into the Life You Never Imagined.