Over a year after we purchased the property at 901 Acklen Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee, we had our long-awaited, much-anticipated groundbreaking for The Church at Avenue South and our new building.

It was a long time coming. At times, it felt like I was a kid again around the holiday season thinking that Christmas would never get here. Fairly recently, I had been having doubts about whether we would ever get that last approval from the city to begin our renovations and additions.

But I’m so thankful that God had this particular day in mind long before it ever entered our minds. I’m sure one day we will look back and see that God’s timing on this was as perfect as it has ever been on anything He’s ever done. One day we will look back and say that this was the beginning of something special that God did in the city of Nashville and in the state of Tennessee.

I kept thinking about Psalm 126 when the psalmist talks about the people of God returning to their homeland after decades in exile. “It seemed like a dream, too good to be true . . . We laughed, we sang, we couldn’t believe our good fortune” (Psalm 126:1,2).

It did seem like a dream. Except this was something I could never have dreamed of when we launched almost nine years ago. This was God doing above and beyond anything we could ask or imagine. This was where God had bigger dreams for us than we had for ourselves.

I still hear the refrain from the old song God of This City in my mind from time to time:

“For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city”

And I want to be there when they happen.