Sunday, June 22, 2008

Sunday Debrief - Taking Risks

PCC is in danger of the same pitfalls of an established church. We are now ten years old, which in church-years is still young, but it’s long enough to relax and settle into a rut.

When we began it was easy to take risks. We had no budget, no staff, no building, no assets, and no reputation in the community. We were not even a blip on anyone’s church radar screen. Back then risk was not a virtue, it was necessary as a survival tactic. We were seven days from extinction every Sunday and if we didn’t risk everything, everyday, we were sure to be goners.

  • We risked our money
  • We risked our reputations
  • We risked our faith

Fast forward to today. Now that we have settled into a brand new building on a twenty-five acre campus the new danger facing us is to become complacent and confuse it with spiritual maturity. We have bills to pay, multiple staff, assets to manage, a reputation in the community to maintain, and a large congregation of take care of. Security, comfort, stability, and maintaining the status quo are the new dangers facing us today.

My heart is racing with excitement, because I believe God is calling us to do it again. Not because it makes sense, but because that is where God lives – He dwells in places beyond the realm of human reasoning and invites us to march off the map.

TAKE THIS SUMMER FOR INSTANCE. Summer-time is usually a time of the year when established churches just coast along in cruise-control not doing much of anything. But we have KICKED IT INTO OVERDRIVE.

  • There was Dad-Fest and Vacation Bible School back-to-back.
  • Next week are having a baptism service and will baptize about 60 people! How many churches can say that?
  • Currently, two people from our church are overseas on a month-long missionary trip to the Ukraine - wow!
  • The week of July Fourth we are launching our Foundations Classes and will introduce you to three new teachers from within our congregation.
  • At the end of July our teenagers are going to youth camp.
  • In August we’ll have a family roundup and small groups emphasis.
  • Literally dozens of people have made a life-changing commitment to Jesus Christ in the last two months - and it's still just the month of June!

I PREDICT: There is so much momentum and spiritual fruit in our church right now that I predict our REGULAR ATTENDANCE will JUMP by ONE HUNDRED FIFTY people by the end of the year. Far from being just a blip on the radar screen, PCC is now one of the most talked about churches in the area!

I believe comfortable, established, non-risk-taking churches are living beneath God’s plan. God is the One who parted the Red Sea, raised the dead, slew giants, and responded to genuine faith. Knowing this, we should be more inclined to take risks and dare to believe God for the impossible
.

To use a poker analogy – let’s push our chips to the center of the table with confidence and answer the dealers call, “ALL IN.”