In the hot Texas summer of 2001 I found myself in San Antonio for U.S. Air Force Basic Training. While I was only gone for seven weeks, it seemed like a lifetime had passed upon my return. The Air Force gave me a new haircut, a new wardrobe, and a ton of new information in a very short intense period of time. Coming to Orlando this week for church planter training has been a similar experience (without the new haircut and wardrobe).

The purpose of this week is to equip church planters with the tools they will need to successfully raise funds, learn about their target area, gather a group, engage the area with the gospel of grace, and plant a church that points people to Jesus Christ as Savior.

Tuesday began at 3am when our alarm went off at home and didn’t end until 10pm when we turned out the lights in Orlando after traveling and then hearing five hours’ worth of presentations. Wednesday and Thursday have been jam packed running from 8am to 7pm. Today we’ll have another three hours before checking out and traveling home.

Everything we have seen and heard this week has been to one end – to see God’s kingdom come.

God is at work. The kingdom of the world is becoming the kingdom of our God (cf. Revelation 12:10). The funny thing is that He is pleased to use each one of us in the process. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:21 –

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

Christ crucified is what we preach. That message, that good news, is changing the world.

There have been many stories shared this week from a church planter in Los Angeles who patiently befriended and told the good news to a next door neighbor who produced pornographic movies, to a predominantly white church that was transformed by planting a multi-ethnic church in their neighborhood, to a man who has simply been faithful in prayer for 33 years and seen over and over again how God has provided all his needs.

The stories are fantastic and mundane because our God parted the Red Sea, but he also counts the hairs on your head. He is in the fantastic and the mundane. He is high and uplifted, and He is near to you – a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Let these few scattered thoughts be an encouragement to you today wherever you find yourself. God’s kingdom is among you. I pray today you have eyes to see it, and I look forward to coming back from this week and ministering with you in that kingdom as it grows even in Charlottesville. I hope to see you Sunday at 9:35am in Foundations as I share some of what we've learned this week as it applies to our vision for church planting in Pantops.

In Him,

Tag