What to do?

It's Sunday morning just becoming afternoon and I'm sitting at Tully's Coffee feeling incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed by all that God is calling us to be and do. It's a testament to God's grace that I'm able to function on a daily basis because my mind is constantly bouncing back and forth between what I WANT to do, what I'm SUPPOSED to do, what I NEED to do and what GOD has actually told me to do. I'm pretty sure if there were 42 hours in the day instead of 24 hours my dilemma would not change.

Leading is CHOOSING.

Following Christ is SUBMITTING.

If we are to follow Christ AND lead others in a lost and dying world to do the same I'm convinced that we will have to CHOOSE to SUBMIT to Jesus and ignore what we want to do, need to do and are supposed to do and just do what God has told us to do. Doing this, or even considering this, leads to my original statement...

I'm "incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed."

So what does this mean for The Pathway? Well, if I knew for sure I'd be in really good shape but here's what God has been doing and how you can be praying. First-- we are committed to being an EFFECTIVE and MULTIPLYING church. We believe God has called us to do this by starting small groups throughout our city that live and function individually as the church but are just as much the church when gathered together. We are also CERTAIN that God has not called us to reach the reached... he's told us to reach the lost and unchurched. So here's the question...

How can we start small groups (churches) throughout the city of Tacoma (and beyond) if we're only reaching the lost and unchurched?

1) Those of us who already know Jesus must focus not only on reaching more lost people but teaching new believers how to share their faith, teach what they know, and lead small groups.

2) We MUST, amazingly enough, TRUST the HOLY SPIRIT! If we continue to set the "spiritual" bar for leadership so high then we cannot reach the lost, poor & broken of our world and expect them to reach others. We must lower our bar for leadership and raise our FAITH in Jesus to a whole new level. New believers must be empowered to lead and reproduce themselves from day 1, not after they've gone through years of "discipleship" and theological training... that is why we are losing the battle.

Ask me in a week if I'm living this out. I'm going to be asking our leaders if they're living this out. We all need accountability. We all need to sacrifice. We need to lead. We need FAITH!

I'm "incredibly excited, somewhat anxious and slightly overwhelmed" but my FAITH is increasing by the grace of Jesus.