If you’re a church planter who’s ever felt like you couldn’t make it, this post is for you. I met a guy at a church planter’s meeting today who said that at one point his church owed the city a total of 6 months worth of rent for the school in which they met.

What was the total you ask?: T-w-e-l-v-e-T-h-o-u-s-a-n-d-D-o-l-l-a-r-s

That’s right… his church plant had a rough patch where they had to beg the schools to let them stay “just one more week” over and over until the church got enough traction to gain enough momentum to pay the city back. I asked him how much he still owed. He said “Nothing… today we keep them paid plus they have $800 of our money as an act of good faith for the future. We want them to know that it was a crazy time and we’re solvent enough now to not let that happen again.”

A second guy at the table said that his former church plant was renting a section of a strip mall when they got 3 months behind in rent. The owner of the mall asked if they wanted to use more space. The Pastor said “Sir, we can’t afford the space we have.” The owner said “I didn’t ask you that… do you want it or not?” Apparently not long after that the owner dies and the Pastor is brought in to discuss the meeting space. The owner had written into his will that the church was to take the deed of the entire strip mall. Crazy huh?

Anyway… I thought it was cool to hear crazy stories of church planting because now both congregations are thriving and God’s Kingdom is rockin’ because of the tenacity of these churches to keep moving forward in spite of adversity.

Today I attended a meeting with Christian Pastors that actually left me in a positive mood. This meeting is a cross-denominatinal group of Pastors who actually see the Kingdom as more than their own church/denomination/”ism” or anything else…

The egos were very limited and the openess was genuine. I did not hear a bunch of whining about how hard planting is (although it is). I didn’t hear one churches statistics (although some are growing like a weed). What I heard was a group of guys (and some of their wives) who -no matter how different- embraced the idea that they were a part of something much larger than themselves.

This meeting was the first of what everyone hopes to be is a continuing resource for planters of all denominations. We all believe in the One Jesus, One Church, One Heaven, etc. We disagree (I’m certain although we didn’t talk about it) over many perephial issues but the conversation focused on what we can do together. I don’t care what denomination you are, you still have to set up a church if you are portable. It seems that this meeting will be less of a lecture and more of an interaction. It will be less about titles and more about outreach and shared experience. We’ve all decided to meet again for 3 consecutive months while trying 3 different approaches to the meeting. This will keep the meetings fresh and provide some experimentation.

The Pastors who set this up are actually doing a good job of listening. I trust and hope that they will continue to ogranize this around what is best for these planters and less about what one-track system they want others to support. This city is huge and we need all types of churches to get it done.

For some of you this post may be pointless… but for me its theraputic because I HATE MEETINGS… especially pointless ones. If this goes the direction that most of the 30 people in the room want it to go, it will be a healthy addition to my calendar once a month. But then again maybe there are some of you who love pointless meetings…

It looks like I’m going to be making my way down to God’s country and rubbing elbows with the Mad Babbler himself, Mr. Gary Lamb. I’m nearly certain that you can find me at the Churchplanters.com Conference on February 26 & 27, 2007 in Cumming Georgia at Mountain Lake Church.

I don’t even know if Gary remembers this but I believe we first spoke in May of ’05 when I posted on my blog that I was going to Atlanta for a couple of days. Gary just wrote out of the blue and said “Have fun dude. Next time let us know earlier. I’m about 30 minutes from NAMB, I’ll show you Hotlanta in all its glory.” I remember sitting in the hotel the next morning thinking “People around the country actually read this thing.” It was cool.

So Gary… I’m letting you know now… I’m headed to Atlanta again! Are any of you out there in blogdom headed down to the Churchplanters.com Conference?