Nightmares begin!

Last night was the first time I've dreamed about our first worship service. We're only 5 weeks away now, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that all of the anxiety and worry is working its way into my subconscious; however, the details were interesting. I wasn't prepared for the sermon- I didn't even have my notes with me. (Typical church planter nightmare stuff!) It was horrible- unorganized, poorly executed, nobody knew what they were supposed to be doing, etc. (More typical church planter nightmare material.) I was running around, from place to place, during the service, making sure everything was going fine. (This would expose my control issues!) But the surprise was that the place was full. There were way more people there than we had planned for. (I've not figured that part out yet, but all I can remember is that I wasn't comforted by it.) I woke up laughing and vowing to shut down the church planting part of my brain for the long weekend.

Obstacles and Vehicles

I heard Paul Tripp speak about marriage at a conference I was at this past week. He was talking about the the self-centeredness and self-obsession that is native to every human heart. He made a statement that lodged itself in my heart. He said that the we all naturally put the people we're in relationship with in one of two categories: obstacle or vehicle. Obstacle - this person is/will keep me from getting what I want. Vehicle - this person can get me what I really want. Either way it's about me! And I'll do whatever I have to - I'll use you, I'll discard you, whatever - to get what I really want! But one things for sure - it's not you that I really want. You're nothing but a means to an end. As soon as he said it I thought, "That's so sick!" That was my first thought. My second thought was: "That's so true!"

That really helped me make sense of something I heard in a sermon by Tim Keller recently. He was talking about befriending people and he put it this way. He said, we are so obsessed with ourselves and so centered on our own life-story, our little story, that when we encounter people we imagine them coming into our story and we say, "I wonder if I can get them to play the role I want them to so that my story will go in the direction I want it to go in." Obviously, that is using someone, not befriending them. To truly befriend a person we have to get into their story. We don't come into an encounter or a relationship filled with our own needs saying, "How can I use these people to accomplish my goals?" We come asking ourselves, "How can I help this person become more beautiful, more productive, more faithful?"

A confession: it's hard for church planters not to see every relationship, every prospective core group member, every conversation as a means to an end. I find myself meeting people all the time and immediately labeling them "obstacle" or "vehicle." I am in the process right now of meeting with people for the purpose of slotting them in the various volunteer position that have to be filled!!! After all, I'm planting a church! I've got a mission! But there's a real danger with all of that. That is, that my personal mission would trump their mission; that I would automatically consider what I'm doing (planting a new church) to be more important than what they are doing (working, parenting, neighboring, etc.). I don't think it should be that way. I don't want it to be that way. So instead of making phone calls and telling people I have a wonderful plan for their lives and it includes serving as the Children's Ministry Director, I find myself waiting... praying... dreaming about who it is that God has given me to pastor and wondering what it means that he has put us all together. Even if I tried to label people, I know I'd get it all wrong anyway. Many of those I'm convinced are "vehicles" will prove to be "obstacles" and vice-versa. It always works that way.

I think we can get so busy as church planters dreaming about the church we will one day pastor that we don't dream about the people he gives us. The people don't exist to serve me and my vision; I exist to serve them and teach them what it looks like for us to serve our city and our world together. That's the vision!

Provision

I signed the lease for our new office suite today. We are leasing from a friend who is being incredibly generous to us. I was looking for about 1,000 ft2 because I only wanted to spend around $1,000/month. Well, we were offered 1,800 ft2 for $1,000/month. (That's just over $6.50/ft.) The suite has nine offices in it and a large open space in the middle. It is perfect - more than we could have ever dreamed of. It is on a major artery in our city. A real, tangible answer to prayer.

But the story gets better. ... I signed the lease at 11:00 am. At 12:25 pm I got a call from a lady in our mother church saying her husband was shutting down his office to start working from home. She was wondering if I might have use for some office furniture - 2 desks, 2 credenzas, desk chairs, office chairs, tables, fax machine, color copier, filing cabinets, etc. I was stunned. In just over an hour, the LORD provided more office than we were looking for for less money than we thought we'd have to spend... and now it was furnished.

In moments like that my mind seems to always go to Matthew 6 where Jesus describes our Father's heart to give us the kingdom and provide for our needs, how he knows what's on the horizon of our lives and is taking care of it. But even more than that, part of what Jesus is teaching us about the Father is that he longs to prove himself able, strong, and generous. I had to admit to myself that this sort of thing was just like him. He doesn't just meet our needs. He lavishes. (When Jesus feeds 5,000 with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread, there are 12 baskets full left-over to prove this point.) And it's when we are weak and helpless that we experience this kind of care. It isn't a phenomenon that is unique to church planting. It's just that church planting creates the right conditions for the Father to do such things.

I wonder what he will do next!

Core Team training finished

We finished our Core Group training this past Sunday. We've spent 4 months (with a few breaks here and there) conceptualizing this new church. Now, we will spend the next 4 months doing the work required to see it become a reality. This is a bit scary for me because I'm much better at the first phase than the second phase. I can draw pretty pictures in my head. When it comes to making them come true in real life, I'm not exactly a proven veteran.

Here is the short list of the things we covered in our Core Group training. We believe these are the spiritual dynamics, practices, etc. that are crucial to church planting:
- Calling (Is this God's idea?)
- Looking
- Incarnation (interviews, research, etc.)
- Networking (Befriending people for the sake of the gospel)
- Evangelism
- Prayer
- Philosophy of Ministry
- The Gospel (What is the good news?)
- The Kingdom of God
- Mission and Vision Statements
- Time/Relationship management
- A Theology of Community
- A Theology of Worship
- A Theology of Mission
- A Theology of Disciple-making

Gray Hairs!

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that one of our sister churches in town was struggling due to being without a pastor for nearly a year and a half. As a result, they officially asked that we consider moving back our launch date to give them time to find a pastor and let him get established. Church planters are typically entrepreneurial types (i.e. self-starters, go-getters), so you can imagine the lump in my throat when they mentioned us waiting 18 months. You have to know the back story to understand. We started seriously talking about this church plant five years ago - in 2003. In 2005 I was called to Trinity Presbyterian as an Associate Pastor to serve an 18-month apprenticeship in church planting. ... It's now 2008 and I've been at Trinity for nearly 3 years and here we were talking about having to wait another 18 months to plant this church. It felt unreasonable, unfair, ridiculous. I was angry.

But as I reflect on the evil we are up against in our city I think you can trace it back to a long legacy of churches, pastors, and Christian leaders who have willingly put their own selfish agenda above the needs of others. If that is true, then the only way evil will be undone is for someone or a group of people to willingly put the needs of others above their own agenda. I had resolved to do this with this church even if it meant that we put off our plans indefinitely. If that was the cost of loving them, then it was a cost I was willing to bear. After all, Jesus was condemned, mocked, spit on, flogged, and crucified (Mark 10:33-34). That's what it cost him to love me. ... What's 18 months?!

We met last night to decide together the best course of action. I asked to share some of the stuff I was thinking. Halfway through one of the elders stopped me and told me he had been the one insisting that we wait, but that having heard what I had to say, he wanted to withdraw his request. We had their blessing to move forward!!! I came in willing to die to me for their sake. I left with them willing to die to themselves for my sake. And that is beautiful. I walked through the parking lot to my car whispering: "And I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven" (Luke 10:18).

So we are still on target with our original time-line. But I learned something very valuable. I looked in the mirror this morning and noticed something disturbing... my first gray hairs! Right there on my chin! Of course, a quick shave took care of it but they are sure to grow back and many more with them over the years. Proverbs 16:31 says that gray hair is a crown of splendor. I'm not sure about all of that, but I think the gray that will grow in my beard and on my head is a sign that the work of church planting is hard and that means it's good and I'm in for that!

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

The following is a week in the life of a church planter:

THE GOOD... The day before yesterday (Wednesday) was an amazing day for our church plant. In the morning I got an email from one of our core group members. He was offering to fill a very important volunteer role in the new church - a job assignment I have been praying about but haven't even "published" yet. He had been reflecting on his life, taking stock and trying to discern his gifts and passions, and he emailed to tell me that he wanted to be put to work. Truly an answer to prayer. ... In the afternoon a friend that has been coming to a Bible study I do every other Tuesday called. I had talked to him the week before about needing office space and asked if he had any ideas. (He's somewhat of a real estate tycoon in our city!) He called to tell me that he had 1,800 ft2 of office space that he wanted me to go and look at. I was cautious at first. I was thinking more like 1,000 ft2 and I was sure it would be out of our price range. But I went and looked. And it's perfect. It's exactly what we need. It's on First Street (a major artery in Winter Haven), right in the middle of what we would consider our "target area." I called back and he told me that it normally rented for $2,000/month but that he wanted to help us and so he would let us have it for $1,000/month (roughly $6.50/ft2). Wow! Another answer to prayer! ... Then, that evening, Ashley told me that she ran into a lady in the grocery store that day who asked about our church. I went to high school with her and she is also the friend of a family we've been building a relationship with through little league baseball. She told Ashley that her family had never really gone to church but that they wanted to and that they were very interested in what we were doing. So our networking efforts with our friends at the ball field had not only born fruit in them but they were also beginning to tell their friends. Another answer to prayer! ... I went to bed overjoyed, convinced that God was working!

THE BAD... Yesterday (Thursday) was a sad day for our church plant. I had a meeting with a church in town that is concerned about the church plant. I met with the elders of this church last October and really communicated our intentions and our timeline poorly. As a result, the process has really hurt and offended them. And this is significant considering the spiritual dynamics in Winter Haven. Our city has a long, sad history of churches seeing each other as the enemy instead of seeing themselves untied against a common enemy. Church splits, abiding hurt and anger, mistrust, discord, competition, pettiness - these are the things churches in our city are known for, and the reputation of Jesus has suffered for it. Therefore, a part of the faithful witness of the gospel in our city is for churches to exhibit the "oneness" (koinonia) that Jesus died to create. And so a crucial strategy is a commitment to working together, to submit to one another, to not put our needs and desires ahead of the needs and desires of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We committed at the beginning of this church planting effort to do it in a way that would be a blessing to our city and to the churches in our city. Not even two months in and we are already having to repent and seek forgiveness. ... I went to bed depressed, wondering how God was working!

THE BEAUTIFUL... Today (Friday) our CBR reading was from John 11 - the story of Lazarus' resurrection. Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus was sick... and he doesn't go to him. He turns to his friends and says, "This sickness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" (John 11:4). Jesus stays put for 2 days and then decides to go but it is too late. Lazarus has died. Then Jesus says the most remarkable thing to his disciples: "Lazarus had died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe" (John 11:14). This confounds me - Jesus chooses not to go to Lazarus when he's sick but waits until he's dead for the sake of his disciples and Mary and Martha and the crowds, because there is more occasion for faith in the raising of a dead man to life than in breaking a fever. It makes sense, then, that he would sovereignly orchestrate the "death" of my dreams and plans because he's in it for his own glory and he's working to create in me the faith to seek and expect even greater things. After two miscarriages there is even greater wonder in a healthy pregnancy. After 5 long years of waiting for the opportunity to plant a church there is even greater astonishment at His patience and faithful provision. I went to bed with this phrase on my lips - "It is for the glory of God"... confident that even if it meant my own death (and knowing it probably did), He indeed was at work.

Prayer: THE work of church-planting

Prayer has always been an assumption or an after-thought. I've always seen it as what you do to "intro" the real work or what you do after the work is done - to wrap it up. I've never seen prayer as THE work. As the way to really get things done. I've never considered prayer to be the job assignment. But consider what we're up against: we are opposed by spiritual forces of darkness (Eph. 6:11ff.); our message is hard and often unwelcome - it falls upon "bad soil" (Matt. 13); the world system we live in is hostile to genuine faith and discipleship; and, as Puritan theologian John Owen wrote, "Traitors occupy our own hearts, ready to side with every temptation and to surrender to them all."

Prayer is...

I attended a church planting meeting today where we talked about cultivating a "prayer culture" in our churches. Richard Lovelace writes, "Facing the formidable and largely unexpected task of evangelizing the whole world for the Messiah, the early church went to prayer, waiting for Jesus to pour out his Spirit to empower them for this task" (Acts 1:13-14). Sounds like a good philosophy of ministry to me - to go to prayer. I turned to my church-planting "coach" in the middle of the meeting and said, "What if our only goal in planting this church is that we would become a people of prayer?" I have to admit - that still feels rather unproductive.

So we're going to go to prayer. We're going to make prayer the work of our Core Group training meetings - to give prayer our best time, resources, and effort. We are also going to recruit a couple hundred of our closest friends to pray with us. Steve Childers, a seminary professor of mine, used to say: "Prayer is the mysterious means that God has chosen through which he unleashes the transforming power of the gospel in your life and ministry." That's why we're going to prayer. If you've volunteered as a "prayer partner," thank you for going to prayer with us.