Now, if you want to build some liberal church, you can build that overnight.
All you have to do is bring in a Christian rock band and bring in Amy Glunk and Sandy
Fattie and you can get a big crowd together and everybody's swaying and jiving and jamming
for Jesus.
Hey, but if you're going to build a church that's built on preaching the Bible, that's
built on right and wrong, hot and cold, on and off, hey, if you bring up that kind of
a church, it's going to take work and sweat and tears, it's going to take God and it's
not going to happen overnight.
Now, I was thinking to myself, when I came to Phoenix, Arizona, I wasn't looking for
a building.
I remember it like it was yesterday, it was less than a year and a half ago.
I remember we rolled into town on the 22nd of December.
All we had, we had the place to live set up, I took three days off from my job that I was
not going to be working, and we rolled into town and you know how it is, you have to unpack.
You have to turn on the water, you have to turn on the electricity, you have to turn
on the gas, you have to talk to the post office, you have to go to the DMV, you have to change
over the registration, it's a pain in the neck to move from state to state.
But I remember I got here and we just hit the ground running, we're trying to do all
that stuff and at the same time, I wasn't going around looking for a building, I wasn't
driving around writing the phone numbers of buildings, I wasn't going around looking for
a pretty little building.
Hey, you know what I was looking for when I got here?
I was looking for the first person that I could preach the gospel to and get them saved.
And I was looking for people, I was looking for souls, why?
Because I was trying to build a church, I wasn't trying to build some kind of a monument,
I wasn't trying to build some kind of a temple made with hands, and I was trying to build
the house of God, which is people, so I said I'm going to find people.
I remember that Thursday, I went out soul-winning.
First day I was in town, knocking doors, winning people to Christ.
Friday I went out soul-winning.
One of the doors that I knocked on Friday, you know Annette was at the ladies' activity
yesterday, one of the first doors that I knocked on Friday was her door.
She was not home, but I talked to her husband, I talked to her husband's father, and I talked
to his brother, and I talked to his brother-in-law, and I got a few of them saved, and you know
what?
They were here that first Sunday morning, they were all here on that first Sunday morning
service.
Jeremy Scaggs was who I'm talking about.
He was here on that first Sunday morning service.
Later on that day, I was knocking doors, I won another guy to Christ.
He was there on Sunday night service.
We had a service going, we had a church going, we had a group going three days later.
Why?
Because we don't spend our time looking for buildings, we don't spend our time with our
handout looking for money, hey, we're looking for people that we can get saved.
That's what this thing's all about.
Hey, that's why I started a church in Phoenix, Arizona.
I didn't come here to build some building.
I didn't come here to establish some monument.
I came here to get as many people saved as I can and to put together a group where we
can all get together and we can sing these great songs, we can hear the Bible preached,
we can study the Bible and say, let's go out there and bring in the lost and fill this
place up with people who also love God, who also want to hear the right kind of preaching.
And so that's why we started the church in our house.
Because our emphasis is not on the physical, our emphasis is on the spiritual.