I mentioned in Monday's post that City Reach Nashville was on the cancellation bubble due to location issues. I shared the details which I will paste below for those that might have missed it. I have been hoping the other location would open up but nothing has changed. We are now at the point where getting the proper permits in time would be nearly impossible even if a great tent location magically appeared out of thin air.
So I am sadly canceling City Reach Nashville. It hate it so bad. I am trying my very best to hang on to the words that Pastor Israel Sanders sent to me. "God always knows when to open and when to close the right doors. So keep your hand on the knob and when He turns it, push and when He has it locked, be content!"
God knows that Kelly Jo and I have tried our very best to follow through on our desire to hold a City Reach campaign in Nashville. We have made three separate multi-day trips to Nashville, trying to twist the door knob. We have walked the streets, driven for miles on those city streets, prayed, talked to people and met with leaders of churches and ministries. We have done everything but beat the door down and we pushed it hard a time or two. It is locked for now so we are asking God to help us be content.
I have contacted Pastors, churches, evangelists and individuals that I know wanted to come to Nashville. Could you help me pass the word to someone that may have made plans to join us in Nashville? I would appreciate the help very much.
I would also appreciate you praying for us. We need to know what direction to go now. There are open doors but we really want the correct open doors. I would really like to be under the tent this month but I realize it would be difficult for anyone to pull something like that together on very short notice. Please ask God to guide us.
Thank you very much for reading and for praying. May God bless you for it.
Davy
Part of Monday's Post:
We are coming down to the wire on our City Reach Nashville and we have hit a pretty severe snag in the planning. During our last trip to Nashville for scouting purposes we settled on one of the city parks that is situated in a great neighborhood for tent revival.
It was not our first choice site but it was very obviously a good location and the best available choice we had. We filed an application before we left town and the metro parks folks followed up with us right away. They have been very kind, very helpful and very accommodating through the whole process.
They gave us a tentative green light and started the formal approval process. All looked good at each communication. They did ask us to adjust our date 2-3 days later because of an annual street festival in the same park and we were glad to do it.
Late in the process the manager (Also very nice and kind to us) expressed worries over having two large and loud 3-6 day events with only one day in between them. She has a responsibility to listen and respond to the neighbors surrounding the park and she was concerned they would be fatigued by the time City Reach began and not respond positively to it.
I understood and agreed with her reasoning. It would be very hard to reach folks when they were mad as hornets that we were there. They might be mad at the park. They might be mad at the city. They might be mad at the manager. They might be mad at the street festival. They might not be mad at us at all but they might take their frustration out on us by doing their best to ignore everything we do.
She offered us a time slot a week or two later but it was not workable for us. We could also have started much earlier but that was not good for us or for the churches involved. We would have had to begin two days from now in order to do it. It was not possible.
