Creative Scribble

One of the biggest things I've learned through preparing to launch a church is that there are a lot more things in my head than I communicate. Certain things that I take as "understoods" aren't as clear to other people that are new to the process or haven't been around me much.

That became very clear to me on Tuesday. I was meeting with a UT student who is going to be a part of the launch team. He comes from a church plant in his home town that started as a group of small groups before they ever launched. Because OneLife is doing it completely differently - focusing on Sunday mornings before starting small groups - he had some legit questions.

In my presentation of this, I had simply said "For the first year we are going to stay simple and focused." But what I had not communicated was how we would ensure people were taken care of, discipled, and didn't fall through the cracks - especially as we hit our target of seeing unchurched and people far from God drawn to Him. This question forced me to think outloud and put words to my thoughts.

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Regardless of what your junk mail folder tells you, size doesn't always matter.

In July of 2004 I preached my first ever sermon to a Sunday morning crowd. There were 19 people there that day at Friendship Church, including me and three people in the nursery. That’s right, 15 people heard me preach and three of those were first time visitors. Talk about scary. In about 17 short minutes I sped through a sermon that would have made an auctioneer proud. But that day changed the course of the rest of my life as I began feeling called away from worship leading and toward pastoring.

Less than two years later this church was booming. Gone were the days of 19 people as 214 crammed the little worship center for Easter in 2006. It wasn’t a one-hit wonder either as that spring’s attendance averaged 181. It was unbelievable to see what God was doing during that time and to see all the changed lives in the process. I was hooked. As the church continued to grow, Pastor Tim and I began dreaming about doing it again in another part of our city and seeing even more people reached for Christ.

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Meeting with so many pastors and church planters over the past year has been great. But one thing I’ve noticed is that very few of them keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to other churches and pastors. Especially when those other churches are larger or growing faster than their own. Ouch. But it’s true.

One of those churches that I hear criticized far too often is Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. This church and their pastor, Steven Furtick, have been the brunt of much criticism because they started only three years ago and are already running more than 5,000 each Sunday. Pastors have said “They’re only reaching disgruntled church members.” Others have said “Their pastor is a dictator.” I translate it all as “They don’t do it like I think it should be done so I’d rather criticize them than praise God that He is doing something amazing there.”

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Last weekend I spent some time praying while Harrison was out of town. One of the things I did was write down on paper some specific prayer requests and vision of where I felt God leading OneLife Church in some areas. This was one of the first things I learned in seminary that stuck with me and it comes from Habakuk 2:2 that says "Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others." So even though God wasn't telling me about conquering a nation (although that would awesome!) I still did the same thing that Habakuk did - I wrote it down.

One of the things I felt was that God wanted me to pray for a $20,000 gift and a $10,000 gift to come in for the new church. Bold prayers that I even doubted a little bit at the time. But I wrote it down. I also prayed for specific people who I felt God wanted to be on the launch team.

In just that one short week, two of these three have already been answered. As I looked back over my notebook I was reminded that God does want us to pray bold prayers, even when we may be doubting that it is from Him. Since I did that, people I prayed for specifically have signed on to the launch team. Then I found out we would be getting an unexpected $20,000 gift from a sponsoring church. This gift put us to within $10,000 of where we need to be to make our first major purchase. That means praying for that $10,000 gift makes even more sense.

So now we'll see how He provides that! It's simply unbelievable what He's done so far and I can't wait to see what happens next.

One of the "joys" of marriage has been being exposed to all of the reality shows on the Learning Channel about people with a litter of kids and the daily life of raising such a large family (the quotes around joys definitely implies sarcasm!). The one that seems to be filling up our DVR these days is a show about the Dugger family who has 18 kids. The dad is a very wise money manager and his mantra is "Buy used and save the difference."

As we have been making our first purchases for OneLife Church and getting quotes on the equipment we hope to buy, we have found that we are actually following the Dugger's advice. So far we have purchased a pro-grade sound system that no church in our position would ever be able to purchase brand new. But thanks to Tyler's hard work, we have found an entire sound system that is used but in top-notch shape. As such, we will pay the same for this slightly used pro-system that we would have paid for a new entry-level system.

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