This past Sunday our church held a Ground Breaking Ceremony for our first church building. To say it was a joyous day would be an understatement, to say it was a milestone in the life of our church would be accurate. Breaking ground on our 10^th anniversary only added to the celebration and the significance.

For years we have been moving toward having our own 24/7 facility, but Sunday was only another milestone on our journey of grace and not our destination. Our mission continues to be one of honoring God, reaching out in love and growing in our relationship with God. While we’ve lived that mission for 10 years without a building, having a Center for Community will only enhance our abilities to live our mission.

I stood at the ground breaking on Sunday and thought about how many different outreach opportunities our new facility will afford – how many opportunities for personal spiritual growth we will offer and how special it will be to hold our first God honoring worship service in our own building instead of a rented school and the moment seized me. It made me realize just how meaningful all the other milestones leading up to this point were in the life of our church.

I won’t list all those milestones, you can read about them elsewhere; but believe me when I say there have been many and at each one there was an undeniable outpouring of God’s grace. We are truly living in Graceland at CPCC. Every milestone/mile marker is a reminder of God’s grace. Maybe that is why on Sunday as the balloons were released into a magnificent blue sky as a part of our ground breaking ceremony, my heart started beating faster, my eyes filled with tears and my mind ran straight to God’s amazing and sweet Grace.

We are on a grace journey at CPCC and there will be many more mile markers we will pass as we move forward. I invite everyone to watch for and celebrate EACH milestone. When I remember the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:20-21, I am reminded we still have a long way to go. So my advice is: hold on and enjoy the journey. I’d love to hear any of the grace milestones you’ve past in your life’s journey.

I have prayed for Tiger and his family often throughout this ordeal because I see this as one of the greatest opportunities for grace and atonement in recent history. Having apologized he must seek forgiveness for what he did. And then if true repentance, the kind where he turns his life around and becomes a faithful and loyal husband and father follows; can you imagine the impact his life and message will have on everyone struggling to overcome sin? It could be one of the greatest grace stories ever told.

As I listened to the replay of Tiger’s statement I thought to myself, what would I say if I stood before 150 million people to confess my sin? I assure you in God’s eyes we are all sinners at the same level as Tiger, but because we are not the world’s greatest athlete, a billionaire, or one of the most recognized people in the world we won’t schedule a news conference to ask for forgiveness – maybe we should. Think about it. What would happen if we took James 5:16 to the max and confessed our sin on public television? What would happen if our grace bath was a public event?

There have been, and are probably still, things in my life that disgust God as much as what Tiger Woods did over the past few years, but I know because of my relationship with Jesus Christ, those things have been forgiven and wiped from my life. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Psalm 103:12 that reads: as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. I stand on that promise and refuse to dwell on past failures that I’ve given to God and boy does it feel good to know God’s grace has been applied to my life.

My question is – will Tiger’s religion of Buddhism be able to forgive Tiger? In a system where one’s deeds and Karma have a direct impact on one’s future, I wonder what impact Tiger’s past sin has on his future. Will he return to golf and pick up where he left off destroying the competition at nearly every event? Probably and that will have little to do with his faith. Will he be able to mend his relationship with Elin? I pray he does and that could have a lot to do with his faith. But what impact will his actions have on his inner spiritual life and will Buddhism provide him with a true source of inner healing? That I am not sure about.

The best I can do is continue to pray for Tiger, Elin and the kids and ask God to plant seeds of true grace and real forgiveness in their lives. The kind that I KNOW Jesus Christ provides to me. The Tiger Wood’s story COULD be the greatest grace story of modern time.

What I hope to do in the weeks to come is to share with you stories and questions about grace that will stimulate your thinking in the arena of grace.

For those of you who might not know exactly what I’m talking about when I speak of grace – I’m NOT talking about elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action. I’m talking about the good things I get in my life that I don’t deserve – unmerited favor if you want to use that phrase.

Believe me when I say my life is full of grace. Is yours? Sure there have been times when I thought life sucked and things were not easy, but overall my life is filled with grace. That’s why one of my goals in life is to share grace with everyone I come into contact with – including YOU.

While I don’t want this blog to be all about me, I’m sure you will read about times in my life when there should have been negative consequences for my actions, but instead I received only good things. Like the time when I wrecked my dad’s truck doing 60 mph on snowy roads and he told the insurance company he was driving – did I mention I was 12 years old at the time? Or there’s the time when I missed my 1^st wedding anniversary because I was with the Youth Group hundreds of miles away from my lovely wife who had to stay home and work so I could go play. Did I mention she sent me a dozen roses and I only got her a card that year? Believe me when I say, I live in Graceland and I want you to live there as well.

Sometimes all we need to do is hear other people’s stories and take a look at our lives and we can see God’s grace. So look for stories and feel free to send me your grace stories if you like and together we can grow in grace.

Welcome to Graceland and for now let me simply say, THAAANK YOU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH… for visiting my blog. Hope you enjoy the journey. Gotta go – Elvis is at the door.