A small congregation in the foothills of the
mountains built a new sanctuary
on a piece of land willed to them by a church member.
Ten days before the new church was to open, the local inspector informed
the pastor that the parking lot was inadequate for the size of the building.
Until the church doubled the size of the parking lot, they would not be able
to use the new sanctuary.
Unfortunately, the church with it's undersized parking lot had used
every inch of their land except for the mountain against which it had
been built. In order to build more parking spaces, they would have to
move the mountain out of the back yard.
Undaunted, the pastor announced the next Sunday morning that he would
meet that evening with all members who had "mountain moving faith".
They would hold a prayer session asking God to remove the mountain from
the back yard and to somehow provide enough money to have it paved and painted
before the scheduled dedication service the following week. At the appointed
time, 24 of the congregation's 300 members assembled for prayer. They prayed
for nearly three hours. At ten o'clock the pastor said the final "Amen".
"We'll open next Sunday as scheduled," he assured everyone. "God has never
let us down before, and I believe He will be faithful this time too."
The next morning as he was working in his study there came a loud knock
at his door. When he called "come in", a rough looking construction foreman
appeared, removing his hard hat as he entered.
"Excuse me, Reverend, I represent a construction company in the next county.
We're building a huge new shopping mall over there and we need some fill dirt.
Would you be willing to sell us a chunk of that mountain behind the church?
We'll pay you for the dirt we remove and pave all the exposed area free of charge,
if we can have it right away. We can't do anything else until we get the dirt
in and allow it to settle properly."
The little church was dedicated the next Sunday as originally planned and
there were far more members with "mountain moving faith" on opening
Sunday than there had been the previous week!
