Update

Wow, it has been a crazy couple of weeks.  I have been silent on this blog during this time and realized I needed to bring you all up to speed.  So, it is time for an update.  God has been opening and closing doors over the last month and we are excited to continue on this journey.

In November we completed what is called a church planting assessment through the North American Mission Board.  This was one of the most intense experiences of our lives.  It involved several interviews in which they asked those really hard questions about our devotional life, marriage as well as addressing our visions and philosophies for the church.  Then there were time slots for public presentations.  These were fun.  You presented and then they critiqued.  In the end this proved to be one of the most profitable things we have done thus far in our ministry.  It clearly revealed strengths and weaknesses as well as brought clarity of calling.  If anyone has even an ounce of interest in church planting it is in my mind a necessity to have an assessment done.

In the end they did approve us to be church planters which means the work has just begun.  We are now in the "incubator" stage.  A church planting coach has been assigned to us and we are writing out our ministry blue print.  This is the primary focus over the next few months.  This is the time in which we are counting the cost.  We desire to be like the wise builder that Jesus referred to:

25Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:25-33).

We are preparing and counting the cost so we can finish what we start.  Please continue to pray for us!