EL’s Dribble

“Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What does his voice sound like? What games does he like best? Does he collect butterflies?’. They ask: ‘How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?’ Only then do they think they know him.”
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I talk to a lot of people about our community and the churchier people always ask about numbers. And then ask very little after that. It’s always a race to get more in the door… and not a look at what “more” really is. Many a prophet [Leonard Sweet, Reggie McNeal, etc] have talked about changing the metrics of church and church planting… “measuring” the important things that reflect transformation not accumulation.

I had to explain to my boss what was getting me excited lately… things that reflect the right kind of growth. Lisa and Serg have been in our community for a long time and have been leading a house church for quite some time. They were good and faithful leaders, but have struggled at times and were surely learning on the job [that's intentional]. But over the course of the last few years, they along with myself have realized that they have a discernable passion for high school students. And as I began to notice it more I wondered, “Why the heck are they leading a group full of their peers. It ought to be high school kids!”

Lisa and Serg helped at a youth retreat recently discovering yet again that the passion in them for students wasn’t arbitrary, but certainly God-planted. So when Lisa returned she prayed how she might move out among her students to bring Jesus to them. Through prayer, she was led to 5 students – 2 of whom do not know Jesus. She asked all 5 students if they wanted to meet up to study the Bible together and all of them gave a resounding ‘yes’. They’ll start it up at McDonald’s this Saturday.

During the retreat Serg had a great connection with one student and made a very tangible impact in his life. The student returned back to school and after a week, told Lisa and Serg that he had 3 classmates who didn’t know Jesus but were interested in learning more. And he asked them what he was supposed to do now and Serg is now discipling this student to continue to bring the Gospel to his classmates.

I realize that I can’t count any of these people as “members” of Haven. And I don’t want to. It doesn’t work all to well with the traditional metrics of church planting. And the truth is that Lisa and Serg likely needed to grow in certain areas of their lives before they were able to get to this point. It’s hard to “measure” their growth over the course of the last few years… numbers don’t reflect that either. But it’s their growth as lovers and followers of Jesus that precipitated God placing them in the right place with the right heart to begin transformational movement among people that they have true passion for. Either way… numbers don’t reflect that.

I have had to wrestle away the importance of numbers in my own spirit. Wrestle away my need to base my value/significance on the numbers. And relearn what it means to see the important things… about people and about community. And begin to live it even when my spirit screams otherwise.

I realize that my little church planting experiment has done more for me than any one else… but I’m glad some of what I’m learning is rubbing off on the people who are coming along for the ride.

I brought our team to the CMA [not Christian and Missionary Alliance - whom we are a part of] Organic Church Movements Conference this past weekend and I’m thankful that it wasn’t lame. And frankly, it turned out really well. Not because the conference was organized so beautifully or that the laying out of the information was necessarily that stellar, but simply said, God spoke. I really wanted my team to come… and they were reluctant: for both good reason and not so good reasons in my opinion.

So I prayed that God would speak. One of the CMA leaders shared in the beginning that God would speak and that we need to be listening. Some of our guys got attacked spiritually as they walked into the conference room – so we prayed; prayed for protection from attack of the enemy so we could hear God speak. And God spoke… different ways to different people and in some very ordinary ways. But it was what we needed to hear… and I’m thankful for that.

I don’t know why – but for some reason I was reminded that we had prayed for God to speak… and he did and that he answered that prayer. For some reason… this time, I was immensely thankful for God that he answered. Almost a little surprised. Why? I’m not sure… maybe sometimes when I pray, I have the following 2 responses:

>> [Assuming that he does answer] – Well, of course he answered. He has to. Heart response? Not appreciative… God is just doing his job.
>> [Assuming no apparent answer] – Well, no surprise… he knows best, and well, I’m just used to him not answering. Heart response? Callous.

Today, I’d like to say sorry Jesus… sorry for taking you for granted. Sorry for losing faith too easily. Sorry for moving too fast and missing the fact that you have answered and responded to my cries every time… and so often my faith is based on a “what have you done for me lately?” sentiment. Sorry my Lord…

I was also encouraged to see Alan and Luanne grasp some things that we’ve always talked about through our time as a church, but it has taken a few years to “put it all together.” I was excited to see the fire re-ignited in Lisa and Serg. I was thankful for my wife who was sick and yet was humble and willing to learn and receive. I’m thankful for my buddy Warren who has always been the “early adopter” of my leadership decisions.

The harder question is, “What next?” – we can’t just go down and not heed the call that God has made on each of us individually and as a community that wants to reach a world for Jesus. What’s next?

The overwhelming word that we need to embrace from this past weekend?

Mission

Here we go…