No, it wasn't a whim. Tam and I have been wanting to be involved in church planting for years now. We just thought it would be five or ten years down the track, when another "experienced" pastor started something we could help with. It certainly wasn't something I felt I could do myself.
I was under the impression that you had to be some kind of super-pastor to plant a church - an incredibly charismatic personality, who can instantly draw thousands of people, while at the same time caring personally for each one of them. Someone who God speaks audibly to on a daily basis, who prays for 5 hours every morning, and wherever their shadow falls, sick people are healed....Of course that sounds ridiculous now that I've written it down - but to be honest, that is probably fairly close to how I felt. I didn't feel I was at all capable of planting a church. So how did that change?
It didn't. I still don't feel capable. But now I'm ok with that. Much of the first part of this journey was God explaining to me that I don't have to be all of that. The weaker and less capable I am, the more God gets to do himself. "Just do it," God was saying. "I'll work out the rest." And if I get to the end of my skills five minutes into the journey, then from that point on everything will be God. Tam and I don't know how it's all going to turn out - how it's going to grow, whether anyone at all will show up, what it's going to be like when we do gather together as a church, or what kinds of struggles we're going to have along the way. But we're ok now just to start walking, and trust that God will organise what we can't.
As Frank Viola says, birthing a church is a divine work. A church is a living organism, and God is the one who grows it and gives it life, just like he does with humans. All God needed was for Tam and I to say yes - despite all the doubts, confusion and unanswered questions.
So we did. Tick step one.
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