Lately, Hill Country has surrounded all of the church planters with extremely bright and insightful ministry leaders. Leaders like Matt Chandler at the Village, Bob Roberts from Northwood, and Hal Haller from Church of the Highlands, have all spent time with and invested in us. I am so thankful for the time we've had with these men of God. I have gleaned much wisdom from each.
However, these leaders and their stories seem to have a seductive force. People, which includes me, are sucked into their story and how they "did or do things" that we neglect some of the basic elements that are vital to our story and church plant. Hal challenged us with prayer, God's Word, and relationship building. Intutively we all know this. We blog, speak, and instruct about these things, but they tend to get lost in our life. He told us to toss all the books aside for the moment and focus on the basics. This resonates within my heart because I began thinking about how much I have been lured into reading the next great book or podcasting a great communicator at the expense of my prayer life and study. Not that books and podcasts aren't incredibly helpful, but they pale in comparsion to my personal devotion to Jesus.
This totally wrecks my schedule. My goal is now to have at least 500 conversations over the 3 months with people in the area, pray over every home and apartment within 5 miles of the Arboretum, and spend substantially more amount of time alone with God. If I neglect these then it doesn't matter how cutting edge I am or how great of a gathering I plan, the church will fail. I'm getting back to the basics.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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