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.