The Lord was certainly in this place

"Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran. He came to a certain place and camped for the night since the sun had left. He took one of the stones there, set it under his head and lay down to sleep. And he dreamed: A stairway was set on the ground and it reached all the way to the sky; angels of God were going up and down on it."

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought to himself, "The Lord was certainly in this place and I didn't know it."

This whole church planting thing is a dream, it seems to me. It is a, to a very large degree, an exercise in futility unless it is an exercise in faith.

I was told initially to read everything I could on church planting, church re-starting, church reclamation -- you name it, there's an article on it out there somewhere to be found. I have.

Recently I read a six-point instruction on handling a dying church by Thom S. Rainer. I was struck by a couple of things. First, a significant group in the church must admit that they are desperate for help. Second, that same group must confess guilt. The confession is that the group failed to reach the community, and held on to the idolatry of yesterday. They were only comfortable with "our kind of people. They saw the church to be a place where their needs were met and personal preferences catered."

Desperation is a commodity I think most of the churches, not all but most, that I have pastored have dealt with. They were overcome with insurance debt and with pastoral salary and pension and health benefits and all the service costs that come with all the above. 

When the money was finally there to do ministry, they looked for someone to do it. Someone not named themselves because most of the time they were very old, tired, worn.

That's just the way it has been. But here's where I take somewhat of an exception to the failed to reach the community part. I believe that we, pastors and leaders of the church, have failed to teach them how to reach the community.

And they are not alone.

I sat at my "new" desk in my "new" office yesterday afternoon, as the skies grew dark and threatening, looking out a great large window at the community called Carrollton, and I thought and I prayed and I realized that unless we, the leaders of this church we're planting in worn, nutrient-less spiritual soil, teach our congregation how to reach the community, we will not reach the community. I spent much time thinking about how to reach the community, how to get teams to come down and paint and clean, how to get folks to give us money to pay for the things we need so desperately.

It came to be, after a daze of concentration that is uncommon for me, that we must do one thing or we will be essentially a non-starter. Duh. I believe we must teach our persons how to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, or we simply have a catchy little saying -- which, by the way, our new church's vision statement is "we are a resurrected community for all."

But how do we leave our offices and reach people? Again, duh...

This morning I think of Paul who wrote, "He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. His purpose was to equip God's people for the work and serving and building up the body of Christ."

That being the case, it seems many of us must wake up and notice that God was here after all. He is here to give us some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Therefore, we must equip our people for the work and serving.

Teach how, coach how, train how. That's our task, leaders. Not the doing, necessarily, but the teaching. Not by my power will this church be planted, but by his.