The past few weeks have been amongst the strangest in my ministry life…and thats saying something.
Let me recap in short form.

At Inglewood Community Church we have had the busiest three months I can remember. Pictures in the Park, AGM, coming off a busy Christmas, Baptisms, Church Camp, salvations….and the busiest we have ever been at our Sunday Services.

A few weeks back at Church I stood up to encourage people to sit towards the front, so visitors don’t have to make the embarrassing trip down the front to find a seat. As I was saying that, I realised there were no seats left anyway. Thats our biggest crowd ever.

This should make me feel happy right? And everyone tells you, ‘its a good problem to have’. But the truth is I felt overwhelmed, stressed, sad, unsure of myself. As a Church we need to make some serious decisions about our future. I am about Church Growth. If a church is growing, it is a healthy Church. But our growth this year has been quick.

Also, and in a strange way, something else affected me. I had promised my son that I would take him on a ‘daddy son’ fishing trip before he had to go back to school. Due to some unfortunate and unavoidable circumstances, that could not happen. That was a regret.

So I felt I needed to take my son away, but I also felt guilty about leaving the church for 3 or 4 days. Explaining to people why I was going away, when they are all busy, focused on ministry, and looking for leadership, was not easy. Not that they made it hard, it was what was going on in my head that was the problem.

But I went away, and that was the start of things getting better, and they needed to. Because I was in a deep funk.

Clem and I went to Myalup for a camping/beach holiday. Just spending time listening to the ocean roll in while sleeping in my tent did me good. So did a few walks along the beach praying, fishing and swimming. I don’t want to pretend this was a spiritual retreat, it was not. More like stress leave. But I did pray.

I am not out of the woods yet, but God has been speaking to me clearly, even from the start of this year. His word to me was clearly, ‘I am going to bring things to you’. So far He has. People to church, a trip to Sydney, and next…where our Church is going to go next.

I am waiting on Him. Even writing this blog post and knowing it will go public is helping.

But I am working out what it is I want to share.
Suffice to say that problems come in all different guises. Sometimes problems are because things are going very well.
Sometimes problems come because you need a break.
Sometimes problems come and you don’t even know what the problem is.

Looking forward to this weeks message…
here is an excerpt…
“Growing up hearing about Joseph there was always something that confused me.
Why was he noble for wanting to abandon Mary at her point of need?
I never understood why the Scriptures called him a good man for wanting to quietly divorce her?
Why is that noble?
And I have to be honest I have heard a number of pastors speak on that and mention it a lot and never heard the answer….ever
Now I know there are lots of mature Christians who are here this morning and do know the answer…do know what the bible meant. So if you are one of those, please bear with me, because for me as I have prepared this message for this week…it has been somewhat of a revelation to discover the answer…to ponder…
This morning we are doing a character study on Joseph. we are going to listen to his story…”

Source

Its all about Trust

Here I deal with my friendship with Pastor Colin Craggs, and the need for trust and good partnerships.

I was invited to attend a conference of Church Planters from around Australia by Crossover Australia. About 30 of us attended with a variety of backgrounds and methods of Church Planting.
Inglewood Community Church is planting a campus congregation. The model being we have one church, one board, one Senior Pastor….with a campus pastor taking caring of the pastoral needs of the seperate service.

Some of the folk at the Conference were house church planters, simple church planters and complex church planters.

Inspiring Leaders
One of the young planters I was impressed with was Mark Broadbent from Queensland. He leads City Life Christian Church. His vision is to see 3 new churches planted over 6 years. The idea being each church plant then plants another plant. They have planted three churches so far. Mark preaches at each congregation. Or rather, the person rostered on for that day preaches at each church. One aspect of church philosophy that really resonated with me was Marks comment that a Christian should be growing as a Christian, moving towards becoming a ‘mission/evangelistic’ focused person. That is his churches agenda. If you have left that agenda as a Christian, while you are welcome to come, you wont be interfering with the Churches agenda. Its a focused approach born out of a desperate desire to see people won to Christ.

No sheep stealers
One common denominator for these church planters was their sincere desire to plant churches for the purpose of seeing people become Christians, not merely shifting the passengers on the boat. It amazes me how some new churches advertise, obviously targeting Christians. Whats the point in that, spending money on reaching people already on their journey? Only if you are interested in building your own kingdom!

Personal
For myself, this is an area we are rapidly moving towards at Inglewood Community Church. The Hub, our new church campus to be launched in August, wont be our last. Already we are planning for the next campus of Inglewood Church. There are enough people who have not yet discovered Jesus for us to be fully convinced this is necessary and prudent. This conference was challenging, diverse and interesting. While I would not follow some of the models being propagated, there was enough common thought to inspire me.