It's your church

I've edited this post, because the original did not say what I wanted to say. It had some drivel about Lee Iacocca or something...anyway, I've changed it to more accurately say what I was trying to say before. Yes, I know that's what the 'Save as draft' button is for. Oh well.

I keep hearing that. We're doing a brochure, and lots of folks have looked at it, and after giving me their thoughts several folks have said something like "But it's your church." Same thing with songs, or napkins, or whatever. Folks will tell me what they like or don't like, but ultimately they leave the decision with me because "it's my church."

Well, it's not my church. It's not their church. It's God's church. God started it, God runs it, and I'm not even the middle man. I'm the guy who knows more about churches than most people, so I'm the guy who leads it. That's it. That's my job, and my gift. To lead. I'm not good at brochures. I'm not good at songs either. Anyone who has heard me sing can tell you that much.

And the truth is that lots of people have helped with many of these things. There has been a lot of input from others on the brochure, a lot of input from others on songs. That's been great, and it's great that folks around here know that I'm not good at everything, and that not everything I do turns to gold. Heck, there are 3 projects going on now that I have little or nothing to do with. I'm not doing it all. But I also know that it's too early for most others to really feel comfortable with big decisions. It takes awhile for people to feel comfortable making big choices. I've been doing this a year, most other folks considerably less, so in many cases I really do know best.

But being 'best' at something doesn't make me good at it. And yet some things need to get done, and since I know best I am logically the person to do them, and I'm just not good at all of them. I get frustrated by my own ineptitude. I don't know if this will go away or not. I just know that it's not fun knowing something is important, being the best person for the job, and still not being good at it.

Oh, the Grand Old Duke of York...

I remember a kids song I sang in grade school.

Oh, the Grand Old Duke of York
He had a thousand men
He marched them up the hill
and he marched them down again.

And when you're up, you're up
And when you're down, you're down
And when you're only halfway up
You're neither up nor down.

There were motions that went with it- when they marched up the hill, you stood up. When they marched down, you sat down. There are other lyrics, but we repeated those over and over, faster and faster, until we couldn't keep up and just started laughing hysterically. It was lots of fun.

Well, starting a church is a lot like that song. Three weeks ago, we had a record high attendance. Then the week after, we had a record low attendance. It's like that song- you're up, you're down, and it's just crazy. Expecting it to come helped- I had predicted in my last post that we would follow our record attendance with it being "me and 12 crickets." Being prepared for the up & down helps. So did the comment of my boss/mentor, who said "Enjoy the crickets and the weeks with no money." I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.

There are still plenty of positive signs. Lets face it, there were still twenty three people who could have been somewhere else and yet chose The River. That is a positive. The truth is that there are lots of positives, and all in all things are going well.

Still...

And when you're up, you're up
And when you're down, you're down
And when you're only halfway up
You're neither up nor down.

Progress!

Last Sunday was a big week for The River, and a big week for me.

Two weeks ago in worship, I had shared the financial status of The River- that we end every month with $500-$1,000 less in the bank than we started with, and that the difference is 7 families giving $35 more per week. Also, the Vision Team had made the first Sunday of each month "Invitiation Sunday" as a way to get before everyone the idea that we are to invite others to The River. Two weeks ago was the first time we had rolled that out as well.

Making these kind of appeals are a new thing for me. In many ways, I'm still new to the captain's chair. I have plenty of experience in church work, and I'm pretty darn sure I have the skills to lead a church, but I haven't put them into practice before. It's one thing to think it and know it, quite another to actually do it. The River is my first venture as the leader of a church, so I've wondered how things like this would go. So what happened?

We had our first break-even week and highest attendance since Easter.

So it was a really big week for The River, because it showed all of us that growth is happening and that we can do this. It also showed me that I can do this- that I can be the leader of a church in all respects. Obviously, I'm gonna be better at some and worse at others, but all this time spent looking, listening and learning paid off. I feel really good about that, and really good about the future of The River. Enough so that I was able to really enjoy taking the 4th off.

Since this is a roller coaster ride, I fully expect that next Sunday in worship it will be me and a dozen crickets, but we still made progress last week, and nothing can change that, and nothing can change what it did for my confidence and the confidence of the folks on this journey. Yay, God!