Beyond Church

Since before I graduated High School, I've dedicated the majority of my life, time, money, and passion to Church. I love the Church and the refuge God intended it to be. I don't regret any choices I've made in various ministry roles, and in our new church plant endeavor, I'm amazed at how God has allowed us to use our long time experience with "mega church" as a tool to give us a leg up on planting a church from scratch.

I'm reading a great new book by Nelson Searcy, called Launch. Searcy gives great foundational advice for us, crazy church launchers. A few learnings that have managed to sink their way into my bloodstream are:

- "Your call to start a church is the most critical factor to success."

- "Build your church from the outside in."

- "Don't try to gather the churched, stay focused on the unchurched."

- "80% of all church plants in the U.S. by the 5 year mark will have been declared DUDS!"

- "Keeping a new church outwardly focused from the beginning is much easier than trying to refocus an inwardly concerned church."

- "God's dream for your church is BIGGER than your dream for your church."

As these ideas (some scary, some encouraging) marinate in me throughout the day, I've become aware of changes I need to desperately need to make in my life, NOW!!

I have "lived for the weekend" ever since I've been in ministry. Just about every moment of my weekday has been primarily focused on either prep, prayer, or planning for SUNDAY. I'll have to embarrassingly admit that good days and bad days have often been determined by whether or not our church service was executed well or poorly. Ugh...that's hard to admit!

Church planting is hard work. It takes a lot of time, and effort just to meet people and network, let alone plan weekly services. I could devote 100% of my day doing things for Sunday or just consuming myself with all we need to get done before we launch in August. And...I would enjoy all of that thoroughly, because I just love that stuff. But another sentence of this book I'm reading says:

"Structure is essential in the life of a leader."

As I tried to make a list of pillars of structure in our attempt at a church launch, God literally turned my face towards Him and made me realize that instead of assessing the "structure" of my church, I need to be assessing the structure of my LIFE! Yes, a "duh" moment, to say the least, but I needed this slap in the face this weekend.

I don't think it was coincidence at ALL that my son was sick this weekend. I haven't missed a church service in well...as long as I can remember. In San Diego we had so much family to help us with the kids. Even when my boys were sick, I wouldn't think twice about having my mom watch them, just because we HAD to be at church. With NO family here in NC, I knew when Cameron was sick on Saturday night that I was going to have to miss church in the morning. Although I have a HUGE desire to be with my friends doing church on Sunday mornings, I didn't even think twice about the fact I had to stay home with my son.

After researching lots of different churches and their roots, I'm realizing that every successful church has become that way mostly if not ALL because of the fact that God just blessed it!

In this foundational time of Church at the Triangle, I need to be spending less time brainstorming services 80 weeks in advance, and spending more time being the woman, wife, mom, and friend God has called me to be and devote more time praying for God's incredible blessing on our church. I need to structure MY life before I even start trying to structure what I think God's church should look like.

I have a good feeling that God's blessing on our church will be a result of us living our "beyond church" lives in a genuinely "care for others" way which will ultimately glorify God more than the best creative service idea I could ever come up with.

I love how God is pursues me and cares enough to remind me of areas of life I often neglect.

I hope some day I'll be able to say my life was a testimony of Luke 6:48.

"It is like a person who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it was well built."