The Ups & Downs of a Church Plant

Church planting is not for everyone. You don’t have the big programs, the luxuries of this or that which more established churches have but what you do have in the folks who hang with you is a heart for God and a sticktuitiveness not often seen in larger and older congregations !  Our church has had its share of great blessings in seeing many wonderful people get saved, grow and move on. We have also seen struggles since moving to the area we built it in and if even half of the people stayed who visited and left because we didn’t have what they wanted we’d be HUGE, but thats not the main goal anyway!  I would much rather stay small and have folks who love the Lord than be large and have a church filled with lukewarm folks.

Over the past year or so I’ve been praying God would lead folks to our church who have that pioneer spirit, people who won’t judge our church for what it doesn’t have but what it does. And not long after, God answered and we had a nice young couple come who have just had their first child in the past few months, then in August we had the largest baptism we’ve ever had !  A couple weeks back we saw another young couple come to Christ and even though I have since learned many people were out yesterday due to being out of the area or sick with the flu, one of the new converts there was unfazed by our worst attendance this winter and remarked to one of our members how much he’s really enjoyed the services, the preaching, and getting to know our folks !  Then last night a woman who is a member but hasn’t been out much lately told me she is coming back as to her shame she admitted the grass isn’t greener elsewhere in our area.  The church she visited is big but woefully inadequate in its preaching and people. God finds a way to encourage you doesn’t He?

As you read Acts a similar pattern emerges with the formation of the early church that we have seen in ours. Ups and downs !  When things go great Satan is around the corner, true, but God is there to give encouragement and growth even still.  When “Saul was yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (9:1) it wasn’t long before the church’s greatest enemy humanly speaking soon became its greatest convert & missionary in the soon to be renamed Paul !   So, be proud of a church that will stand on the Word, and be eager to see souls saved and believes that having great people is to be preferred over having great programs.  It is a worthy thing to be involved where God is truly at work !!