A Church Plant.

This last month, our church hired Pastor Craig as the first church plant pastor. There is a great excitement as we think about the future of reaching Western Sedgwick County for Jesus Christ. I often wonder how things will work out though. I wonder how finances will work. I wonder how leadership will work when people go from the mother church to the daughter church. I wonder how children's ministry will be affected, how youth ministry will be affected, how adults will be affected, how staff will be affected... And I realize that I just don't know.

Faith is believing in what I cannot see and this is a venture that requires faith from many people. It requires faith for those folks that will head out to the Goddard Area church and it requires faith that stay at the mother church. Faith that God will provide in miraculous and tremendous ways, faith that he will continue to orchestrate us towards the vision that he has given us, faith that his arm is not too short and that he will ask us to do incredible things for his kingdom.

I realize that my fears and worries are quite human. Jesus says, "Do not worry. About anything." And often I worry about alot of things. I am learning to rest in Jesus and am beginning the early stages of understanding what it means to be a "kingdom thinker" as Jesus was. He was constantly focused on his purpose for coming to earth. He came to bring truth to the world around him. He was truth. He came to bring the relationship back into being between God and man. A relationship that was personal and intimate. And to do this, he had to die. It was all part of his purpose. When Jesus talks about the kingdom, he is talking about bringing truth to the world around him. He uses the phrase, "the kingdom of God is like" several times throughout the gospels. My hope and prayer is that he will teach me to think in this paradigm.

God, take my worry. Be the conductor in this vision driven venture that requires me to believe without seeing right now. Be my guide, my fortress and my desire...