Faith Firsts

In the next 10 days or so, we plan to close on our first house and have our first worship service as a church plant.  Both of these decisions have been big steps of faith for us.  Over the past 6 to 8 months, I’ve increasingly been making decisions that are rooted in my faith and belief in God and what God is doing in our lives.  Buying a house and planting a church both seemed like crazy ideas that could either turn out great or potentially turn into disasters!  Unfortunately, making decisions in faith doesn’t mean following God into guaranteed successes.

Living by faith means  risk and fear will remain when I step out into a new venture.  Walking by faith is something of a call to live recklessly, or as Hauerwas puts it, out of control.  We believe in God and so we make decisions based on who he is and what he promises.  We forsake our impulse to control the situation and guarantee a good outcome to every decision.

When I was in Africa, the founding missionaries of African Bible Colleges had a saying, Faith in Action equals God in motion.  So far that’s been confirmed.  God is showing up and things are coming together.  We increasingly are connecting with people who are excited about our church.  Our friend from New Jersey who is going to run our Children’s ministry has moved in with us.  We gained a great Children’s pastor and we are able to fulfill a part of our vision for our new house.  We have a great praise leader who has done a ton of work to help put together our worship service equipment — something I could never have done by myself.  Lots of people are stepping up to volunteer at our preview services.  And generally I sense the excitement level raising with those who have been showing up and participating in our church planting group.  It’s all been really fun to see.