"There's no place like home," folks say, quoting Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. True, I suppose. But it doesn't mean you won't eventually pack up and move to another home.
That's what's happened with Baptist Standard Publishing, the parent company of the Baptist Standard and its online news resources, as well as FaithVillage.com, our new website to provide faith experiences for teens and young adults.
Although we've been located in an industrial park with an excellent skyline view of downtown Dallas for what seems like forever, this isn't the first time we've moved.
The Baptist Standard was born in Honey Grove, in northeast Texas, in 1888. The next year, we moved to Dallas. In 1892, we moved to Waco, but we returned to Dallas in 1898. For most of the 20th century, our offices were located in downtown Dallas—on property now occupied by an office/hotel/retail development known as the Plaza of the Americas and home to our Texas Baptist sister, Buckner International.
In the mid-1970s, leaders of the Baptist Standard's staff and board of directors decided to trade that prime downtown location for a hilltop lot about three miles or so to the west. So, since 1975, we've been sitting on the border of gritty, industrial West Dallas and the ever-changing, linguistically fluid northern edge of Oak Cliff.
We built an office/manufacturing building, and we leased most of our space to our printer. The location has been ideal, because the main post office—and departure point for our newspapers—is just down the road.
Frankly, I thought we'd never leave. But our board and staff began re-thinking whether we want to remain in the landlord business when our printer at the time, Dallas Offset, went into bankruptcy a couple of years ago. Simultaneously, we began to recognize how the operation of FaithVillage would change our personnel configuration. We realized we could either invest major funds in remodeling our building to suit new staffing needs, or we could put the building up for sale and find a new home.
So, that's what we've done. We examined scores of properties back in downtown Dallas and along the North Dallas Tollway. We found what we believe we need outside Dallas proper, at the intersection of the Tollway and Legacy Drive in Plano.
Many of us with long tenures here will miss our old "home." But we realize an office really is a complicated tool. And just as many jobs require workers to update their tools to keep up with the demands of their tasks, so it is with offices.
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As we move, we thank God for blessed years on the edge of downtown Dallas. And we ask the Lord to bless us as we move while also staying at our task—informing, inspiring, equipping and empowering people to follow Christ and expand God's kingdom.
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