Sabbath Broken

Okay, so much for my bloggin Sabbatical. Well, it rain all day again, and well, I pretty much stayed in bed all day. No kidding, like until 1ish. Jeesh, that’s a long time to be in bed. Now…well, now I’m up and awake. Actually, I’m getting kinda sleepy, but oh well. Anyway, I had this killer migraine all day (hence the reason I was in bed). And man, have I been having some killer weird, realish, dreams lately. Several times this past week I have woken up wondering if what I dreamt about happened.

Well, Carrina’s mom came over this afternoon, which was cool – always fun visiting with Judi. I tried dating her before Carrina. Seriously. I asked her out. She said, “yes” then canceled on me. She’s regreting it now…lol! True story. As Dice used to say, “workin my way up to mom!”

Wow, did I just quote Dice? Man, where did that come from.

Our basement is leaking. Well, just the add on part. Bummer. I’ll be digging it up on Monday. For now, I am dehumidifying it. Fun.

Carrina’s been dying from killer tooth pain yesterday and today. That means I went to Larry & Barbara’s by myself tonight. Barbara cooked this sweet trout, and Larry and I ate till we couldn’t breath. Then we watched this hilarious comedy skit he video taped. Jeff somebody. Anyway, we were in stiches! Wow, this guy was funny. Good time with Larry and Barbara (always is).

It was fun talking with them tonight about our church life (not to be separated from life, but you know what I mean). I felt this freedom, like I was able to just talk about my memories and such. It was nice. I’m excited to see some closure there and see them move on to another phase in their journey together.

In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life. The doors are wide open.

Church plant.

That’s the door I wish I could walk through right now. Don’t ask me why, but I can’t escape it (hence why I am typing this post…yes, all this just to talk about church planting…bear with the sanquine, please!). I got turned down (sort of) by Acts29 ministries (for their funding of a church plant). But I still haven’t been able to escape it. Then I’ve been reading Bob Hyatt’s blog and he’s doing a church planting week. And it’s made me realize that I don’t have to give up my dream of planting a church (see the “Prodigal Project” tab above).

Paul. Paul was this dude who killed Christians then became one, and well, Jesus said to him, “you’re really going to get into some trouble for my names sake.” He was right, and the way Paul was going to suffer for Christ was by going all over the known Empire and planting churches. So that’s what Paul did.

Some times Paul would be in a city, town, village, for a week, three weeks, four months, a year. During those short (and long) time periods he would plant a church. So, here’s what I’m saying. Jesus plants these churches through Paul. Some times Paul stays longer, some times he’s there a week or two, tops. How do they survive with out a “enterpreneural”-ish, visionary, I can do all things, macho-dude to lead them into glory?

Jesus pastor’s them.

Now, that’s not to say that Jesus doesn’t pastor the churches that have the alpha male e-v-i-m-d lead pastor either. Jesus is the Great Shepherd. So basically what I am saying is, Paul goes into a town, plants a church, stays with it for whatever ammount of time he can, and then whizzz, he’s off to the next town. He does go back and visit them, but in some cases it isn’t for over a year or more, and of course, he sends letter, but UPS isn’t quite as fast then as it is now (maybe?), and some how they survived, and even flurished without him!

Did they have their share of problems? What church doesn’t (and if for some weird reason you’re still reading this and you hate church…guess what, they all have problems, just like you and me and everyone else, cause they’re made of people, and people have problems)? Actually, the church with the MOST problems was in Corith; where Paul stayed the longest!

So, maybe Mancelona can be planted, even if I move in a year. Maybe God is able to use me to plant a church that he can handle on his own, and raise up leaders who are going to make mistakes, with or without me (heck, I’ll bet they make less than I did!), and it will do just fine. Just like they did with Paul.

Of course, Jesus said directly to Paul, “Paul, go plant churches” (or something to that effect). If you say so, Jesus…