As part of our Special Exception process we have been through an eight month (or more) process of developing a site plan, traffic brief, architectural plans, hiring a lawyer, dozens of meetings, lots of prayer, etc…. It all culminated into a packet of information that was presented to Frederick County on Monday. They will review the information for one month and let us know if we can build a building on the property or not. There are five requirements in order to pass a special exception for a piece of property, and we meet all five. But there is always the chance that there will be a snag because the process involves people who are subjective and given to vary in how they respond. So pray that the board approves our appeal and that everything goes smoothly.

The hard part of the process was the things that I thought we had plenty of time to think about and plan over the years of development of the property had to be planned NOW. For instance I knew that our church would eventually have a day care center, or mom-morning-out program, or something similar but I thought I had plenty of time to think about it. I just wanted to begin with our church building. But in order to eventually have a child care center we have to include it in the plans NOW. It has to be included because of traffic counts, turn lanes in the into the property, sewage treatment, etc… We had to show ball fiends, phase two and three of the building for the eventuality of our having a thousand people on the property at one time, a school, and how they would all relate together.

So yesterday I had the privilege to drive the stakes in the ground and placing Daybreak’s signage showing to the public our intention to build and develop the property. Many will drive past and never even notice it, but it represents months and months of work and thought and planning.

Each phase of our building process has had it own frustrations and challenges. It is important to celebrate the mile markers as you pass them. This project seems to grow in difficulty at each level of development, but today I celebrate a sign going in the ground and all that it represents.