stuff i think

Autopsy of a Church Plant

Many of you know there is a church plant in our past. It was a wonderful, frustrating, glorious, difficult time. I'll spare you the hairy details, but when we left it to join the staff of VCC, it didn't survive long. This is probably more painful to write than to read, so you may not understand why I have purposefully avoiding reflecting on the whole event very much. Last week Kels uncovered a box of video and audio tapes from our celebrations. With morbid curiousity, perhaps, I started sorting through them and have found myself listening and watching things I thought I would have preferred to keep boxed up...also feeling things I didn't know I had boxed up.

Reflecting back and watching the tapes have reinforced what I knew back then...that we had a group of wonderful people. They were loving and genuine throughout it all. My heart would be glad to see any of them at any given time...definetly no hard feelings on our part. Also, when the church didn't grow like I thought it should, I put most of the blame on my shoulders. Enough time has passed now that I'm no longer compelled to assign blame to anyone...but watching the tapes has shown me that what we had at the time was good. Some of the teaching I did actually startles me now - not that it was wrong, but that it was bold. I was praying and fasting like never before, and it shows on the tapes. I'd do good to return to my rougher roots...less programing and more passion. It's also fun to watch Adam Mosley lead worship - he was 20, 21 years old and doing everything for the first time. It's easy to watch the videos and understand why he's playing in front of thousands now. He's good - and he was good then. For a little church, we had killer music.

Never despise the days of small beginnings. And never speak ill of the days God calls good. I'm grateful for our time with SpiritLife, and I pray those involved at the time are too.