Initiative

One of my most consistent prayers for our church is that everyone who is a part of it would begin to take ownership of the mission of the church. The way I believe I will know the church is taking ownership of the mission is when the church begins to take initiative in accomplishing the mission. By taking initiative I simply mean anything they do, personally or as a group, to develop other mission-minded Jesus followers in our community without asking me about it or needing me to come up with the idea and push them to act on it.

Well, it happened. This may seem small to everyone else but it is huge to me. It's honestly not the first time someone has taken initiative, and I did know that they were talking about it, but it was the most prominent step that a group within our church has taken to make disciples without my "permission." I loved it!

Here's how it went down...

Yesterday we had a bunch of people over to our house to watch the Seahawks actually win a game! One of the girls that came over does not know Jesus and one of our other girls has been trying to get to know her. This morning her facebook status said... "okay God, I'm listening." Pretty amazing. Well, I asked our church member about it and she said "yeah, she is so excited about attending our new group tonight." I immediately responded, "What group?" She said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I thought you knew we were starting a new group tonight."

I said I knew there had been talk but I did not have any idea it was happening and I definitely didn't know it was happening tonight! I told her that I would be praying and I was genuinely so excited about. Three people from our church got together, without the approval of a "committee" or the "permission" of a pastor, and decided to start a new community of people for the purpose of living out the mission of God. How cool is that? I believe with all my heart that this kind of initiative is the only way we're going to see Holy Spirit sized Kingdom multiplication in Tacoma and beyond!

Please pray for this new group that will be meeting on Monday nights at 7:30 beginning tonight. Pray for the girl who will be there that has decided to "listen" to God. Pray that more people who are a part of The Pathway will start taking the initiative to accomplish God's mission for our church. Finally, ask yourself, am I taking initiative for the gospel?