These words, taken from the website and membership material of Cornerstone Bible Fellowship in Hamilton, Bermuda, served as a guiding light in their selection of an architect for their new facility. Prayer has the highest value in the formation of that church, and they wanted an architect that shared that value; not just a Christian architect or even a church-design specialist, but an architect that prays. This is my account of how the Lord connected us with Cornerstone.
The Lord often guides through what I call “Divine coincidences”. These are incidents that cause most people to exclaim “what a coincidence!” while causing people of faith to proclaim Divine involvement. This, from the faith-perspective, is when seemingly unrelated circumstances and situations coincide in such a way as to facilitate God’s plans and purposes. Tuesday, April 21, 2009 was a day of such “coincidences”.
For years, WPH has had office prayer on Tuesday mornings. Attendance and participation is voluntary yet paid-for. We started this in 1999 to connect our employees spiritually, to remind us of who we are serving in our work, and, practically, to ask God for His help in the many ways that we need it. We pray for the churches we work with, pray for pastors and building committee members, pray for employee’s family members and many other things. And it was on a Tuesday morning at 9:30 – just as we were about to start office prayer – that the building committee chair for Cornerstone Bible Fellowship called.
In our office, Joan is our ‘prayer warrior’. It is one of the reasons I wanted her to become part of our team in 2002. (Fortunately, she is also proficient in many other practical things, like bookkeeping, development and client relations.) Joan prays specifically and regularly sees specific answers. The night before our prayer meeting, Joan felt we all needed some encouragement about God’s continued purposes for us as a company helping churches. We had been feeling the effects of the recession. Many of our churches had postponed building plans because of the economy. We had to lay-off two people earlier in the year, and everyone else was now getting concerned. So Joan prayed on Monday night very specifically, asking God to bring a new church to work with on Tuesday….. and Cornerstone called. Divine coincidence? I believe so, but for more reasons than just the fact that Joan asked specifically the night before. Here are more interesting ‘coincidences’
Nancy, Cornerstone’s building chair, initially discovered us as a result of a web search for church architects. She had previously worked in a prominent architectural firm in Princeton, NJ. By ‘coincidence’, one of our architects had also worked there. Nancy recognized his name and recalled him having a good reputation, though she did not know him personally. (Upon further inquiry about Thom, she learned that he had also graduated from the same Trenton high school as her husband, but that can be considered a ‘normal coincidence’.) Nancy had also worked with Joan Capelin, a public-relations specialist in the design / construction / real estate industries. Our Joan had just read her book Communication by Design and written a blog post on it here in The Ministry Café. Nancy had not yet discovered our blog site, and Joan referred her there as they talked on the phone. The first entry Nancy saw was Joan’s on Capelin’s book. (Another ‘normal coincidence’?) . When Nancy inquired about our location and a potential visit to our office in Penndel, PA, there’s not much to relate it to geographically except that it’s just north of Philadelphia and the closest well-known attraction is Sesame Place, in the town just north of us. The only thing of any notoriety in Penndel is Philadelphia Biblical University (PBU, as we call it.) As Joan checked-out Cornerstone’s web site, she learned that Cornerstone’s senior pastor, Gary Simons as well as the youth pastor were both PBU alums….they know where Penndel is located! (Joan’s daughter also attended PBU.)
When you’re looking for signs of God’s guiding, little things can add up. Nancy began to share with Joan about Cornerstone Bible Fellowship, God’s work there, the significant growth and their quest specifically for a praying architect. Joan then told her that our firm was, at that moment, in office prayer. And if Nancy had called a few minutes later than she did, Joan would not have answered the phone because she would have been there with the rest of us. So the ‘coincidences’ were now adding up. But there is more.
My wife, Patty, had started a Moms-in-Touch prayer group years ago. A friend of hers from that group had moved to Bermuda when her husband was transferred there for work. She had come back to the area for a visit about 8 years ago, and told me about this wonderful church she was part of over there. She spoke of the growth and how they would need a larger facility, and then boldly proclaimed to me: “One day you will come over and design a new building for us”. Paz is another praying woman, so her words stuck in the back of my mind. She and her husband moved back from Bermuda a few years later and I thought nothing more about it……until Nancy called.
Joan got off the call with Nancy very excited, and told me all about their conversation and her specific prayer request the night before. I then recalled Paz’s words and began to wonder “could this be that same church?” Paz never told me the name of the church. (Even if she had, my memory for names is pretty bad.) I would have to wait to find out. However, at this point, it’s pretty easy to guess that, yes, it was the same church!
Towards the end of my first conversation with Nancy, after talking about the church and our qualification to help them, I asked her if she knew Paz. There was a prolonged silence. At first I thought that maybe she did know her and it that it was not good. My mind raced in those few moments, imagining some major offense or doctrinal disagreement and that by association with Paz I had just disqualified us from further consideration. (Stranger things have happened in our work with churches over the years.) Instead, a rather surprised Nancy explained that two of Paz’s sons had been out on her boat that weekend. Nancy had actually never met Paz, as she joined the church after Paz moved back to the U.S. But she knew of Paz. So I shared with Nancy what Paz had said to me years before. All of this was taking place with about 750 miles of ocean between us.
Coincidences….prayer….answers to prayer….Divine coincidences. Perhaps it depends largely on what we want to see and what we’re looking for. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit with the promise that He would lead and guide us. So why shouldn’t we be expecting ‘Divine coincidences’ every day – especially as we pray.
Prayer Meeting: the most important service of the week!
