Tuesday, May 5, 2009

New Church Start meeting

Well, I am in a meeting in Arkansas for churches that are starting or parenting new churches. It has been very interesting. One topic that has been interesting is the things that the "Mother Church" feels. Possible fears include:
  • what if some of my friends leave our church for the new church?
  • what if the new church start fails?
  • what if all of our biggest donors leave?
  • what if we have to put our future building plans on hold because of the new church?
What is your response to those potential fears? Do you share the fears or do you have confidence that God can help us successfully launch a new church?

I want to tell you how I feel about these fears. First of all, some of our friends will leave to help start the church. That will be painful. Some of them will be good givers. I hope so, for the sake of the new church.

Usually when people go on a mission trip, they come back in a week. If God calls you to go on the mission trip of helping to start this new church, you will be gone for a year, or, you may not ever come back. You might just want to stay at the new church.

This is likely to be the most unselfish, Christ centered thing that our congregation has ever done.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

1 comment:

yltf said...

Fear. Fear is the main ingrediant for most of our percieved or real troubles. Fear is the root of anxiety, and many other problems. If we trust in God have faith that we are trying to do his will, if we pray that he direct our thinking, we can not have fear.
If God is directing our lives and if we put our trust in him who or what should we fear? "What if?" thinking is almost always negative.
If we turn the "what ifs" into good "what ifs" they are much more productive. What if all goes well?
what if the new church does great? Everyone knows that most of our fears never happen. Some real smart guy probably Jeff told me once, "fear/worry is paying interest in advance on a debt you will probably never owe. We put our faith in God, we ask him to only do his will, the new church will be fine. Thats my response to the potential fears..:-)