Yahoo! Tonight’s New Community service will be in the new half of our auditorium. We’re moving in to the somewhat unfinished space to allow for renovation on the older half of the auditorium. Both sides will be completed so that we can use the full auditorium within the next 5 to 6 weeks. Jason Powell has more details over on his site about the transition.

Here are some fun facts for you stats cats who want to know the nitty gritty details:

• The old auditorium held about 1,100 people. Ultimately we’ll be able to accommodate 2,200 in the expanded auditorium; however, our initial goal is to use 1,750 seats (because that’s all we can accommodate with current parking and children’s space).
• We’re also doubling the children’s center which is on the lower level just below the auditorium. I believe we’ll end up with about 30,000 square feet in the children’s center.
• We plan for one child for about every 3.5 adults who attend our services.
• We currently have almost 900 parking spaces and we’re planning to add another 300 spaces by the end of the summer to accommodate the 1,750 adults in each service.
• We plan about 1 parking spot for every 1.5 seats in our auditorium. In other words, it takes a lot of parking to be able to fill that many seats.
• Planning parking? You’ll need about 1 acre for every 100 spaces and around here it costs about $1,000 per space. In other words, it takes a lot of money to build parking lots.
• About 1,100 families pledged nearly $6,000,000 to fund the construction in our Come Together campaign.
• We used Injoy Stewardship Services to help us with the stewardship campaign. It’s worth every dollar to hire experts to help with stewardship campaigns.

Wish you could be here to join in the fun. Maybe you can join us for one of our WiredChurches.com events later this year to experience the new space on your own. We’d love to have you.

Here’s the "box score" for this past weekend at Granger Community Church.

Music: "Train Wreck" by Sarah McLaughlin and "Feels Like Today" by Rascal Flatts

Message: "Story of a Desperate Marriage That Survived" — Mark Waltz, Pastor of Connections, interviewed a couple who survived an affair and found a new start through the grace of Jesus Christ. The story highlighted the importance of relationships, sharing our stories from life, and encouraging people to just take the right next step even when they’re facing huge trials. The couple shared how Jesus had transformed their lives and their marriage.

Service Highlights: Video teaser for Stomp Out Loud series starting on May 7/8; Giant curtains were opened to reveal the wall separating our current auditorium with the new expansion had been removed.

Stats: 4,598 total attendance (3,595 adults + 1,003 kids); 13.3% increase from the same weekend last year

Percentage of weekend attendance by service:

1. Sun 10:15 am = 26%
2. Sun 11:45 am = 24%
3. Sat 5:30 pm = 21%
4. Sat 7:30 pm = 14%
5. Sun 8:45 am = 14%

Final Notes: This was the last weekend of the Desperate Households series. The messages are available on CD at WiredChurches.com.

This weekend is our last weekend of services in the current auditorium with the north wall still standing. That wall is coming down so we can double the capacity of our existing auditorium from 1,100 to 2,200 seats (we’ll only be using 1,700 seats until we have additional parking and children’s space available).

Construction has been progressing through the winter on the expanded auditorium, and we’re ready to blow out the wall so we can begin renovating the existing portion of the auditorium. After the wall comes down, we’ll be shifting services to the northside of the room (the new portion) for about 4 or 5 weeks while work continues. It’ll be pretty fun to be holding services in the space while they’re putting the finishing touches on the new auditorium.

If you want to watch the process as the wall comes down, you can check out the construction web cam.