By Matthew Hanna, BMM missionary to Taiwan
Cornerstone Baptist Church in Kaohsiung held its first service in September 2002. Since then our family has been amazed and blessed to see God repeatedly shatter our expectations of what He can accomplish in building His church. In January 2009, our rented facilities were no longer big enough to hold our growing congregation, and we began to seek a suitable property for purchase. It didn’t take us long to discover that any building big enough to meet our need was too expensive, and anything we could afford was too small. Then, in February, the business agency that had been occupying the corner property right next door to us suddenly and unexpectedly moved out.
The building had more than double the floor space and greater visibility than our existing church home. Furthermore, it would not require us to move our physical location in the community. However, the lease was double our current payment and seemed beyond our ability to afford. But convinced that God had opened a door, our congregation determined to trust God and signed the lease.
Since moving to our new building, God has expanded our ministry and blessed us with numerous professions of faith, baptisms, new families joining our church membership, and unbelievers present in every service. Furthermore, God has faithfully sustained and expanded our church finances. We are still seeking to find land in our area that we can purchase for future use and are expectantly waiting to see what God will do next in the building of His church.
This article first appeared in the 2009 In Review issue of BMM's Advance magazine.