Getting On Board With What God Is Growing

When we first moved to NJ to plant the Brunswick Church of Christ we were a little naive. We did not really know what we were doing but we were convicted to step out in faith and walk in the direction we felt God was leading. I wouldn't change that step of faith for the world. I do not believe we could have learned the lessons we learned any other way. I am convinced however, that it is our duty to help prepare, train and coach others who are called to start churches so that they can avoid some of the pitfalls we encountered. I suppose that is the desire of all parents literal or spiritual; to guide the next generation through the lessons of our own experiences so that they do not have to repeat them.

If I could share one word to those Christians who feel called to start new churches that will lead their communities to build life around our Savior Jesus, it would be this,

You are not off to start something new...You are simply choosing to get on board with what God has already been growing.

I sort of understood this a few years into the church plant, but not really. I remember praying through a cemetery saying, "God I know You have been at work in this community for much longer than I have been alive", but I did not fully understand the truth of that statement.

Sunday night I returned from a rejuvenating weekend at Harding University where my wife and I were involved in a weekend conversation about world missions. Coming back from this weekend I was convicted to pay closer attention to the people whom God has been working on all around me that I have failed to get on board with. "If it is true that God is the one working and the one able to produce a harvest", I thought, "then I need to get on board with what He is doing and stop trying to make my own unfruitful way."

I quickly thought of 2 fellow bus drivers. One gentleman, whom I will call Terri, I wrote off as unreachable about 3 years ago. He is married with children but has a chronic flirtatious spirit. Nearly all the conversations I had overheard in which he was a part were sexual in nature and involved women. He was also quite rude to the students on the only bus ride I took with him. For all I knew about him I did not really like him.

Just after Christmas, however, he told me someone gave him a Bible as a gift (someone had not written him off!). He said he had been reading it every day. Two other bus drivers were sitting at the table with us when Terri told me this. Sarcastically and with a loud chuckle one of them responded, "You are reading the Bible?!" I was just as shocked. Terri was not bothered by the chuckles and told me some of what he had been reading. I encouraged him to keep reading and boarded my bus so as not to be late.

The other gentleman has on numerous occasions asked me questions of faith. He is in his 60's, struggling financially and socially, yet has one of the humblest spirits I have seen. With these two gentlemen in mind I felt like God was calling me to get on board with what He was already doing in both of them. So I asked each one of them separately, "If I could get 3 or 4 guys together between bus runs on a certain day of the week to have a Bible discussion group, would you join me?" They both quickly said they would.

How might the past 6 years have been different if I was more keenly in tuned with what God was doing all around me? What harvests would I have seen if, instead of trying to make something grow that God was not growing, I noticed what God was already growing and simply got on board with it?

I think about the Pharaoh of Egypt in the time of the Exodus. This Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, spent his whole term as Pharaoh trying to stop what God was growing. He said, "Look, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country" (Ex. 1:9-10). This Pharaoh organized all of Egypt around trying to suppress a people that God was blessing. The result? "The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread" (Ex.1:12).

Part of God's promise to the Israelites included the promise to bless those who blessed them (See Genesis 12:3). How might Pharaoh's future have been different if, instead of fighting what God was growing, he got on board with it? What blessings might have come his way? What devastations could he have avoided? There was nothing Pharaoh could have done to stop what God was growing; so why fight it? Why not just get on board with it?

For any future church planters out there who are trying to discern where to go and what to do when you go, I offer this small piece of advice: Go where God is growing. Go where God has been preparing a harvest. Take the time with your team to pray, fast and be still in order that you may discern what God is up to in the place where you are going. Because if you try to grow something that God is not growing already, you will not see any fruit. It does not matter what outreach methods you employ, if God is not already at work where you are, or if you do not get on board with it, you will not see fruit. Hugely successful churches have sent out church planters to start new churches in new communities by doing exactly what the hugely successful mother-church did, and it flopped. Why? Well I believe they went to a place where God had not, yet, prepared a harvest. Or the harvest He had prepared they did not get on board with. Perhaps they set out to reach a people group whom God had not been working on in that community.

Folks I am learning that life, church, work and family would be a lot easier if I learned to recognize the things God was growing and joined the team. As Gamaliel once said to a group of people attempting to imprison what God was growing, "Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God" (Acts 5:38-39).