Our last Sunday before launch

Yesterday we met in our circle one last time. Here’s six things I shared with the group as we headed into this coming week and this next season.

1. Get Ready for Change: I have no idea what’s headed our way in the coming weeks and months. We could be in for challenges and trials. We could get to December struggling to grow. We might have to find a new space to worship. We could be in over our heads. On the other hand, we could grow. We might have more people than we’re ready for. Whatever is coming, our team needs to get ready for change. More people means a certain sense of loss of the intimacy, closeness, and familiarity that we’ve enjoyed for the last year. More people always means more sinners, more sin, more room for misunderstandings and conflict. We are not immune from sin or from the evil that has destroyed other churches. Gossip, malice, factions, division – all of it can destroy us as easily as it has destroyed others. Sin and conflict is inevitable. The question is, how will we face these challenges. We’ve spent whole nights talking through Gospel-centered conflict and forgiveness. What remains to be seen is, will we live these things out? For better or worse, change is coming, so lets be ready for it.

2. Don’t stop now: We haven’t arrived. We’re not done. We can’t kick up our feet or start coasting. There will be a real temptation to breathe a sigh of relief and take it easy thinking, “We did it. We launched weekly services.” The truth is, we’ve just begun. All we’ve done in the last year is create an environment to live out the vision we’ve been talking about for so long. I’m huge on corporate Sabbath worship. But church is more than a Sunday service. We need to remember what we’ve spent a year talking about. Gospel. Mission. Community. These words now have to be lived and displayed. Nobody on our team is allowed to sit the sidelines or move into the spectator seats. So we can take a deep breath, and get ready to charge the next hill together.

3. Pray & Give: Two of the things we’ll be calling our Core Group to is prayer and sacrificial giving. We’re asking God to instill in us a desperation that moves us to prayer. We need to keep praying for our city, our church, and our world. Thus far we’ve used Sunday nights as a place for corporate prayer. As we move to more formal services, we need to find other ways of making this happen. We also need to tithe. We need to bear the costs of starting up a church. We’ve never approached these things from guilt but are asking the Lord to motivate us through the gospel.

4. Serve, but don’t get burnt out: Imagine hosting people for a meal at your house. Your family has to prepare, cook, welcome guests, serve, entertain, and clean up. Now imagine doing that every week. It can get exhausting. We have a small team that, at least for now, has to bear all the burdens of this ministry. We have a small pool to call on for serving in the nursery. That same small pool of people has to help set-up, and bring coffee & snacks for hospitality, and host events, and welcome visitors, and…you get the idea. So we need our people serving. But I’ve heard of so many church plants where good, hard-working people who love the Lord simply get overused and burnt out. So we need to be weary if we are getting exhausted or losing joy in serving in a particular way. If so, we need to ask for help. God has given us a community for a reason. And as a community, we need to watch out for our brother or sister. We need to ask if they could use a break and encourage them when they serve. Let’s be watching for one another so that we can serve with joy and avoid crashing.

5. Have fun & Have faith: Let’s not forget what a blessing this whole thing is. I don’t know why I get to be a part of a church plant. So many people are not afforded this joy, and yet, through no merit of my own – God is letting me participate in the planting of a new church in our city. How blessed am I! What joy! As a team, let’s remember how blessed we are to participate with God in this new mission. So enjoy this ride. Have fun. Laugh often. And have faith. We launch our church preaching Matthew 16 where Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus says that upon that confession He will build His church. So that’s what we’re being built on. We’re not building this church on Siby’s guitar, or Ajay’s pulpit, or whatever. Seven Mile Road is built on this confession – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So have faith in Jesus as we go.

6. Thank you:I’ve been around church planters enough to hear that often the first year is a nightmare. It’s common for guys to get disillusioned and face difficult people of all sorts. By God’s grace, He has surrounded me with a dream team. They love Jesus, they serve humbly, the care about people and the city, they follow, they pray – they have made this work a joy and not a burden. Shainu and I are so grateful to God for the people He has called to partner with us in this work. We love them deeply in the Lord.

We ended the night by praying. As the Spirit brought Scripture to mind, we read them aloud. We thanked God for the journey and submitted the coming days to Him. It was a good way to end one season and get ready for a new one.