The idea for new things comes from God. He is the One who plants ideas, creative vision and artistic designs in people’s minds. But there is often a process of practical steps from the conception of an idea to its actual birth and that process often involves people, practical skills and persevering hard work!
Translating my ‘rough sketch’ of a notice board idea into reality took a lot of time, people and effort. The leadership are to be thanked for their support and willingness to be involved in such things. First of all, we contacted the signwriter who has worked on other signs for us and he agreed to make us a sign measuring 8′ by 4′ which had the text of John 1:5 TNIV at the top and the phrase ‘With God In The Community, With God For The Community’ on the bottom of the sign. That then had to be fixed to the wall, which took 3 men considerable time and effort! Garry made a frame for the sign, out of wood which needed to be painted black to match the picture frame. More time and effort!
Stacey spent a considerable amount of time one Sunday evening taking photographs of all the teams (having spent even longer getting all the lights and backdrops ready for this task!) From these, we chose a number of photos to go on the notice board and had prints of these taken and mounts bought.
The cleaning & food distribution team
The Parent & Toddler team
The Music Worship team
The Youth team
The Preaching team
The Coffee Morning team
Then came the saga of the acrylic sheet. Garry felt that a plastic sheet would ‘finish off’ the notice board and protect the photos and picture from dust and damage. Ordering a sheet (8′ x 4′, like the sign) was easy. Getting it delivered was not. The company used TNT as their courier service and we received an email saying this would arrive on a Monday. We had made it clear that the building was only open by prior arrangement and so Dave was to be contacted before delivery was attempted. On the Monday, the driver ran out of time to deliver. On the Tuesday, he phoned my home number, failed to get hold of me, turned up at church, failed to deliver and disappeared again. When Dave contacted the firm on the Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., he was assured that he would be contacted and given an estimated time of arrival. At 9:14 a.m. the firm rang back and told him delivery would be within the next half-hour, so he duly went to church to await its arrival. When it failed to arrive within the hour, he contacted TNT again, to be told that delivery had been attempted at 9:11 a.m…. before he was originally given any ETA! As he remarked wryly, Mark’s previous sermon on time travel seemed more apt than ever! Delivery finally came at 9:58 a.m. on the Thursday (two minutes within the ‘special two hour notice given to account for your inconvenience’), with the details about contacting Dave firmly written all over the package…
Once the sign was in place, the photos (with captions) were arranged in place using the famous ‘Golden Ratio’ (which I still don’t understand.)
Then came the task of drilling holes into the plastic (sorry, the cast acrylic sheet):
The protective covers had to be removed:
And finally… (with apologies for the reflection from the fluorescent lights!)
