Making a Difference?

I'm working this morning in a coffee shop while waiting on a lunch meeting about church planting. Two things about that statement - first, this is the loudest coffee shop I've ever been in! At the next table are two women who have just returned from working out. Their conversation makes me blush. Just a few more feet away are two men talking business. Money and more money are their goals. As I listen to the various conversations, I don't really expect people to be talking about yesterday's sermon (if they heard one) but I would expect Christians to at least reflect what they hear in biblical preaching and teaching.

Maybe it's a stretch to think the people sitting near me attended church yesterday or are Christians. The truth is that most people in Little Rock do not attend church even half the Sundays each month. Many people never attend church. Fewer and fewer weddings and funerals are held in churches. Christian ministers speak at fewer of these occasions anymore. Bottom line: we are making little impact on the masses.

That brings me to my next thought - church planting. We'll never reach the masses if we never reach the individual. How many people living near our church know much about us? How many of them know about heaven and hell? How many of them are prepared for eternity? The location of the church and the sign out front are mass appeals - and ineffective appeals. We reach the people one at a time when we establish relationships with them. Church planting is about building relationships with people who are not in church and probably not Christians. Those relationships lead to Bible studies which lead to conversions which lead to Christian communities called churches.

I have been struggling with a call to be involved in church planting for the last 15 years. I'm not really sure what that call is - I just know I need to be involved. That's why I am leading CRBC to pray for the city of Talitsa in Russia. That's why I will lead CRBC to join with other churches to plant a church in central Arkansas. That's why I'm having lunch with a church planting strategist today.

But I'm not convinced that leading my church to plant churches is what this call is about. My call to faithful Christianity and to pastor includes church planting. But is this call a call to be a church planter? Am I supposed to be the guy at the new work rather than the guy at the established church? I can give you a dozen reasons why I shouldn't be the guy. I keep thinking of the one reason I should be: God may be calling me to make a difference, to impact eternity by leading a church plant.

Last night's Bible study was about Jesus calling Andrew, Peter, James and John. One of the points in the text is that these men responded to the call immediately and completely. No hesitation. No fear of risking security. If God is calling me to this, I want to be as responsive as his first disciples.

Pray for me about that.