Wow what a year!
It has been an amazing year for M and I.
We took this year as a pilot year, to see how God unfolds the biblical apostolicity that would define our future - it has been an adventure. The danger in times of entrepreneurial uncertainty, is to repeat the past. Whether successful or a failure, it is what we know, so we do it over and over again.
Our past has been extraordinary. The numbers look like this
We came to faith - 35 yrs ago,
Married 32 yrs ago,
Pastoral ministry for 30 yrs,
Served in 2 international church planting movements,
Led 2 churches for a combined 27yrs,
On 2 continents,
Have 3 biological children, - [now 4]
And 4 grandchildren,
Helped plant many churches,
In many countries.
Yep - an amazing adventure. However, we still have another good 20 years in the saddle.
In many ways the next 20 years are the most intriguing. They are certainly unchartered, but unlike 20 years ago, we now know just enough to be dangerous. 20 years ago, we knew that we were ignorant - and I guess ignorance was bliss. Now after all these years of study, leadership, pioneering, brotherhood, we can begin to believe our own press. There is just enough for us to be impressed with the story, thereby relying more and more on repetition rather than on the destructive nature of faith.
Why 'destructive'? Faith always has to undo us first - our knowledge, our experience, our wisdom, our ways, our thoughts, our efforts. Then, in the midst of this seemingly calamitous undoing, is the first stages of the discovery of the new. It is scary, painful, vulnerable, but empowers us to divine dependence.
The world we live in is simply not the world we set out in during the "Invis" Jesus People days of the 70's, nor the same as the pre-NCMI days of the early to mid 80's. These are such different days to the 'heady and intoxicating days" of the 90's. So much is changing. So much has evolved and transformed. So must we.
Over the next while I am going to walk you through the Genesis Collective unfolding story. It has been amazing watching God put the journey together.
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