Kairos moments

In Michigan for a week of meetings. I get to hang with folks who are considering taking the plunge. What amazing people they are! I see their potential and I know what God might ask of them and I am blown away by their courage. I walk through the lobby of the place I am staying and see the very person I am intending to send an e-mail to when I get back. I love those kinds of moments when God arranges meetings you intend to have anyway and they get to be face to face. It seems so wonderfully kairos. How cool when God invades the limits of our chronology with things that seem so very, very right.

Fear fest

I spent part of the wee hours writing a report to Classis Arizona about the cluster. It is hard to express all the things that whirl through my brain when I write about the cluster. I want folks to know how impossible this all is but I also want them to share the vision and dream the dreams and imagine what God might do. Yesterday I had a bit of a fear fest. I imagined it all going bad and no planters coming and the discontinuing of funding and the death of the dream. I imagined myself not working for the Village or the cluster and having to get a job keeping books somewhere or just being unemployed. It was a nerve wrenching ride down the fear road. I ranted for a while to Jimmy and he listened well. Later I kicked myself for letting the fear get the better of me and remembered that God is good and loves his kids even when we are a mess and haunted by the devil's lies. By the time I left Jimmy I was resolved again to continue the war against the real enemy, the liar himself. It is good to know that even if everything fails as we imagine failure, still God will redeem it and work it for good.

Tom Buss, a guy I met on CRC Voices, called me to have lunch. He talked about the early mission in Minnesota and how it took fifty years before anything of substance happened. Fifty years of people being faithful in smallness. Most died before they saw the fruit of their work. He laughingly said, "Maybe fifty years from now people will talk about that crazy guy with a vision for Tucson." Maybe fifty years from now Tucson will still be a dark city in the heart of the most underchurched county in America. One never knows how God works. I do know this: Fifty years from now I want people to look and see that God was good. They are welcome to forget I ever existed if they will trust that he is good.

A hard spot in the road

Everything is proceeding smoothly. Potential planters express sincere interest and proceed through the process of assessment of their gifts and potential. I always like to think that nothing matters but passion and a willingness to lay down your life, but I know there is more to it than that. There are so many books I've read and so many conferences I've attended and so many experts I've talked to. There is so much to learn. I hear the questions of the would be planters and remember when I first asked those questions. It is hard not to become the answer man. It is hard to let them wrestle and come to their own answers. And I'm always learning, too. It is powerful to taste their enthusiasm and see the desire God keeps building in their lives. Then, of course, we get news that one of the funding streams may be dry. Is this a test or a no? It is one of the first hard spots in the road. I'm begging God to show me the way.

A long and winding road

At the behest of churches in Arizona and the Christian Reformed Church in North America, I have the privilege of starting a cluster of four new churches here in Tucson. Already the attacks come fast and furious and already my sin patterns emerge and fester. We long to plant four new churches! It is impossible work. God is powerful and sovereign and if he is for this nothing will stand against it. If it should fail and fall apart, it will be because he has chosen other ways to expand and grow his kingdom. Meanwhile we begin this ride together and see where the Spirit will take us. Hang on and watch God work with us and through us. Send prayers and support and encouragement as you are able. It is going to be a fun ride!