Praying, Waiting, Fishing

Our four-week InterMissioncame to a close this past Wednesday night, with a refocused vision and a renewed sense of direction for our church, and especially for our small groups. Hopefully, we will move beyond just hearing and take action to become a more "missional" church.

I have to say, I expected when we headed into this time that we would come out with an "action plan" that would be specific as we charted the course to multiply our groups. However, for whatever reason, I felt that God did not direct us at this point to specifically structure where things would go from here. That makes me very uneasy and uncomfortable, since I would much rather have everything tied up in a nice little pre-planned and well administrated package. But that is not where we are just yet.

So, we are asking those existing groups that were meeting prior to InterMission to gather again and discuss the future of your groups, specifically in regard to how the Lord may be leading you toward launching new groups. We hope to provide some more equipping and training in the next month, but need to know who God is leading to take the step to launch something new. For those who were not already involved in a group, but want to be a part of one, we'd love to have you group together to start something new.

For all of us, I hope we will move out of our comfort zones to be about our Father's business of living Great Commission-focused lives, and that the format and culture of our small groups--and our intentional lifestyles--will reflect that.

For now, I would ask that, like the disciples in Acts 1 that we discussed on Wednesday night, we all "join together constantly in prayer" as we wait for God's clear direction for each of us for the next steps we are to take. He is sovereign over our church, and He has a plan, even if at this point we can't all see it with clarity. The last thing we need to do is get ahead of Him, but we do need to be ready and available to be obedient as He leads.

I am convinced of this: when we look back at where we are a year from now, we will see God's fingerprints all over this time. And, I believe also that we will see the fruit that has been borne because we chose to answer the call of our Lord Jesus, who said "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."

I'm praying for you, as I hope you are for me, and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

--Pastor Ken

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