The year was 1997, and the location was a deep hole in which stood an abandoned restaurant, a fish camp, as it is often called in the South. We had just secured the use of that building to start the Cornerstone Baptist Church.
When I say that it was a deep hole, what I really mean is that it was a deep hole. That particular piece of property, as some of the local old-timers were later on kind enough to inform me, used to be a fishing pond. At some point in the distant past, someone got the bright idea of draining the pond and putting a restaurant at the bottom of it. Compounding that bad idea was the fact that the pond had been fed by five very strong and reliable natural springs. Those springs had been diverted by underground pipes so that the foundation could be laid and the building built.
Because of that entire disastrous arrangement, the septic system was up on a high hill behind the church. But since, ahem, “stuff” does not run uphill, the only way to get it from the hole up to the field lines on top of the hill was a pump in the septic tank.
Mind you, as a green-as-a-gourd, wide-eyed, young and inexperienced pastor, I knew absolutely none of this. At this stage of my life, I have built two 10,000-square-foot buildings for our solidly growing church, plus rebuilt a few houses. At that stage of my life, I could barely drive a nail straight.
After the church had been up and running for a few months, an annoying sound began to intrude on our worship. It was coming from a closet just adjacent to what used to be the main dining room but had become our auditorium. And so it was that I went to investigate, locate and disable the annoying sound; ANNNNT ANNNNT ANNNNT does not go well in the midst of “Amazing Grace.”