The first step in church repairs
/Question 2: Share a testimony other than physical healing in which reading one or more of Skip’s articles had played an important part in your own spiritual study and prayer and final demonstration.
Some years ago, I was asked to be on the building and grounds committee of my church. The committee was working on a number of building-related issues, but the largest project was to replace the whole heating system. The existing steam-based system had been problematic for many years; each heating season, one member had to spend quite a bit of time draining the system and purging the lines. The membership was united in feeling that a lower maintenance system was in order and had raised nearly $200,000 to cover the anticipated cost.
While there were months of meetings with contractors who recommended mechanical solutions to the problem, the real work was metaphysical. I was pleased to see this work as part of my practice. I worked specifically with Skip’s article “The first step” (Journal, January 1991).
Then one contractor who had examined the heating system recommended fixing some misconfigurations in the system instead of replacing the boilers. We were dumb-founded. The committee had been working on the heating system for three years and no one had ever suggested there was a misconfiguration. The committee changed direction and made the changes the contractor proposed.
That wasn’t quite all it took. The system still had a tendency to ingest too much water and then shoot 40 gallons of water out an overflow. Again, more prayer. And again, a remarkable solution was discovered: Because we had a two-zone steam system instead of a single-zone system, a vacuum was forming. Once a vacuum-breaker was installed, a problem of 20 years’ standing was solved.
When we were done, the total cost of the work was less than half the budgeted amount. But the best part was that the entire committee saw that Mind—not a “smart” contractor—had solved the problem. I’m very grateful, not only for finding the solution, but also for the way in which it was seen by the committee and our whole branch church.