The other day Jud and I ran across this video. Neither of us have stopped thinking about it.
[vimeo https://www.vimeo.com/9776406 w=400&h=300]
Balance Beam from Discussion CHS on Vimeo.
Right now our church family has embarked on something terribly difficult. Our current vision is to plant another church in our metro area with about 200. We have over 700 people who would call our church theirs, but due to illness, travel and probably laziness too, we have about 450 people that attend each Sunday morning. If you do the math (and even I can do this one, so I am sure you did too), the plant will take almost half of the people who attend. That sounds kind of crazy, right? It sounds like it puts the existing church into peril. It sounds dangerous, even.
And I have never been so certain that this is the right thing, not just a good thing even, but the best thing. It is going to stretch everyone, from the people who are going to the ones who are staying, everybody will have to change. And the biggest area of growth when you do something hard is almost always in trust. It is growing my faith even now. When questions come up in my mind I have thoughts like “Am I going to like the people who go? Would I rather stay right where I am? Will I have a lot more to do after the plant? Will it change how our family is operating?” And the like.
The answers to those questions can all be boiled down into Francis Chan’s idea. Do I want to live a life of challenge and risk falling off but gain Kingdom rewards? It sounds like a pretty good trade – my life for His.
[And you know I couldn’t put up that link without a caveat. I am the queen of caveats! While I really, really appreciate Francis Chan and most of what he has to say, I am not where he is on salvation. He maintains that believers cannot continue in egregious sin because they have the Holy Spirit. I am positive that you can because 1) if we believers couldn’t sin egregiously, then there would be no need for the epistles because we would just be able to know the right thing to do from the Spirit 2) my own personal anecdotal evidence proves otherwise 3) remember all those Old Testament saints who didn’t persevere to the end? Yeah. Those guys. You can disagree and we can still be friends and all. I might even post a video of you up on my blog.]
You crack me up with your parenthetical release from liability. I really wish you had put an asterick with some fine italicized print at the bottom.
Thanks for sharing that illustration. Here’s hoping we all continue to do flips & twists on that balance beam…regardless of the risks, as long brings Him glory!!!
You know it, Zan! And, by the way, I am loving how you are performing on that beam. Crazy risks and amazing actions for His glory. Keep it up, woman!