Mike’s Musings

Opportunities and life

My life has been full of opportunities, I was reminded yesterday at our staff meeting that I was born with opportunities. I have squandered many opportunities in my life and I will likely squander more before I die.

It was only a few years ago that I started the path to a degree in Christian Ministry with absolutely no good reason why, other than the nudging of God. Now I stand in the beginning stages of planting a church. What an incredible opportunity, what an incredible risk, how incredibly hard yet how could I not move when God nudged? To the eye, I have much to loose and not much to gain, the ministry is probably not know for its great financial rewards or wonderful benefit packages, yet there is so much more to life. As I wrestle with raising support and preparing to launch a new church I came across an interesting post (written by a young church planter) that I can totally relate to.

Steve Furtick:

A lot of people I know are more fearful of making a wrong move than making no move at all [...] If you are currently considering an great, godly, risky opportunity, consider this: The cost of missing out can be greater than the cost of messing up. The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.

I did way more than Mark

I read today on a friend’s blog about the Hundred Push-up program and being one who can’t stand to pass up a challenge I had to opt in. My initial count was 27 and I am feeling really fat, old and out of shape.

Where are we going? part 1

I have watched my bride blog for a couple of years and she has prodded me continually to start writing. I can stay silent no longer.

We have been on a wild ride for the last few years and this seems to be a great way to share thoughts, concerns, dreams, triumphs and failures.

Three and a half years ago I was led to a bible college to start taking classes for a degree in Christian ministry. I had no idea why, I just knew I had to go. After a year or so I began feeling the call to ministry, although I had no idea what that might look like. Two years ago I met Jeff Gauss through his blog and a few months later he asked my wife and I if we would bring our family to the church they were serving in, 20 miles from our home. Two years later we have been through church planting assessment and have been invited to do a year of church planting internship at The Journey North Community Church.

This will be the first post of many, documenting the trials and tribulations of our church planting journey.

This is a test
a test to see
if this post is truncated in the rss feed
I don’t know why this thing keeps truncating the posts
I have it set properly on the dashboard
Maybe there is something in the template that is forcing
this horrible truncation

Day 2 Great weekend

Sunday at TJN we were present for an incredible worship experience with Glen Clark & Family. Glen’s personal testimony starts out, “Called to the ministry but rejected by the church…” his story resonated with me in many ways and while they family dresses the part of hillbillies, nothing could be further from reality. Traveling as a family and going into places that many would shy away from, they are truly ministering to the broken and hurting. Jesus hung out and shared the hope that is found in Him with thieves, prostitutes and many others who were cast out by society, this family follows his lead!

After a great morning we had the pleasure of having a picnic with the Richmonds at a park in Baxter. We had a little lunch, the kids played and we got to have some adult conversation. Brett is the children’s pastor at TJN and it was great getting to know this family better.