173rd and Walker

My first vivid memory of Ron Stump was he and my Dad standing around our dining room table looking at the giant roll of blueish floor plans for a new Westside church building at 173rd and Walker. Property had been purchased and we were ready to break ground. Ron and Kay Stump had just taken a job at Westside and moved down from Canada and this was the first time they were in our home. It was 1985 and Ron was 38 and my Dad was 40, the ages of Josh and I now.

Westside Church of Christ had been meeting at a building on Butner road which we had outgrown and sold to a Korean church. My family had been there since 1976. We worshiped at Meadow Park Jr. High for almost 2 years until the new building was finished.

Those were formative years for me. I watched my parents participate in the leadership of a church on the move. My parents moved to a larger house to accommodate church Christmas parties and large family groups so we could continue to meet together with our "homeless" church community. I watched people work together on plans for the new building, fight about what color the bathroom stalls should be and whether it should be a "multi purpose" building or a traditional sanctuary. It was an exciting time for Westside, often tense and embattled but we had a goal and were doing our best to go where God was sending us.

I was there on the inaugural Sunday of that building. I taught aerobics classes there and stayed late to hang out with that skinny Stump kid after basketball. He and I led the youth group and hosted many lock ins and events. I listened to hundreds of sermons from Rudy Morrow and Tim Woodruff. Ron Stump listened to hours of my railing about the injustices of the world in his office with that ugly couch. I married that skinny Stump kid there on May 15, 1993 and the walnut trees feature prominently in our wedding photos.

When we moved back to town a decade later, I brought my 6 month old baby Gibson back there and spent many Tuesday mornings helping to lead a MOPS group in the fellowship area. 7 year old Griffin has never been a member anywhere else. I sang "Carry Me", a song Josh wrote to inspire the struggling, many Sundays while watching my dear Ron Stump grow weaker and in more need of God's carrying arms. I sat through Ron's funeral at 173rd and Walker. It was filled to the corners with people he had touched over the years. A multi-purpose building with blue bathroom stalls, used for so many years by a loving yet sometimes battling community. A family.

Now we are leaving that building behind. We've sold to another Korean church. Once again we are a "church that moves". This will be my fourth Westside Church location and I am looking forward to what God has in store for us. I am admittedly a little melancholy to leave. So much of my life unfolded there and my years there really shaped who I am.

But we follow God and he has made a new place for us. I am excited about the possibilities and opportunities he has placed before Westside. He has long provided for us, inspired us, grieved with us, nudged us and loved us.

We are saved by God, sent by God and led by God.....and there is work to be done.