Starting to Think about Church Planting... again.

Nehemiah 2:4-5 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.”

Here are my unsorted thoughts...
I am finished ministry at LEFC as of July 1, and I have a three month paid sabbatical after that. Taralyn and I will be taking our sons to Winnipeg for two weeks in the middle of July, I'm helping out with Camp Evergreen at the beginning of August, and we're speaking at Camp Tulahead at the end of August.
After that...???

I've been thinking a lot about Aldergrove. I've driven through it looking for a cafe or a coffee shop or some place I can sit and pray and watch, maybe get into some conversations with the locals. After a while of driving around I settled on Tim Hortons. I dunno... it's... Aldergrove. I think I share the same sentiment of many Aldergrov-ians. It's not a place people want to hang out in, but rather people seem to want to hurry up and get out of, go to Langley or Abbotsford or Chilliwack or Vancouver. It's a hard place, with boarded up businesses and schools, some new developments, a lot of crime, some churches that seem to be on the right page. I think the next step is to check out the demographic and social stats for Aldergrove online.

I've been thinking about church planting, and how it might look. Years ago, I was fascinated with buildings. I'd see a building for lease, drive around it, get out of my car and walk up to it, lay my hand on it and pray for a church to be planted there. These days I'm more about hanging out. Taking my laptop to a cafe, watching people, building up the courage to engage people in conversation, developing consistency and familiarity, meeting with people and getting to know their friends, talking about Jesus, inviting people to hang out together, building a community, studying the Scriptures together, finding ways to worship together, doing life together.

But all this toward what? Planting a church. That's my goal and my aim. I'm not into simply creating community and dialogue. I want church. I want preaching and worship, community on mission, elders for shepherding and accountability, baptisms and communion, UP/IN/OUT, consistency, location... those are all things that I want to see in the church I plant.

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