On Tuesday morning, the day after I talked with Tam, she had morning tea with a good friend of hers. As they were catching up together, Tam mentioned our conversation. She was thinking her friend would say it was naive and crazy. But instead.... "You should definitely plant a church! You guys would be great at that!"
On Wednesday morning, she met with another good friend - another wise woman who Tam also thought would say it was a bad idea. Same result: "Yeah you guys could do that! Where would you do it?"
On Thursday morning, I met with a man who works for one of the denominations around, whose job it is to help pastors find the right church to join. We were trying to find the right pastoral position for me. I was happy to go anywhere, if it was the right church. But the more we talked, the more we discovered there just wasn't anything available. No one was looking for a pastor. The conversation wound down, because there was really nothing going. I'm not really sure why (probably because nothing else was happening), but I mentioned to him that something we'd always wanted to be involved in was planting a church. I thought someone with his pastoral experience and wisdom might be able to give some insight. And suddenly his face lit up and he said,
"Ah! Now you're talking my language!
It turned out that he was also the man in that denomination who was in charge of supporting church planting. I wasn't aware of that at all, but the way things were going, it didn't really surprise me! He instantly rattled off five reasons why planting a church is one of the most effective ways to grow the Kingdom. And we talked about church planting for the rest of the meeting - what the next steps for us would be, how we could be supported, etc.
"How'd your meeting go?" Tam asked when she got home later.
"Interesting," I said. "There aren't any churches looking for pastors at the moment. But it turns out he heads up the support for church plants."
Tam said she figured something like that would happen. Really she'd known we'd end up planting a church from the moment I brought it up on Monday night. It just needed some time for the idea to settle. It had taken months for me to get used to the idea, but God convinced Tam in just two days (she's a lot quicker at listening to God!).
And that was it. We were in the water. No more thinking about swimming, wondering what it might be like. No more discussing and debating how to swim. No more comparing swimming pools. We jumped, and that was it.
And as it turns out, swimming is fun.
And as it turns out, swimming is fun.
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