One Month Into The First Trimester

It's been exactly 4 weeks to the day since formally beginning the church planting process, just one month of the first trimester.  If my ad nauseam metaphor of pregnancy is getting nauseating, just be glad you're not experiencing "morning sickness!"  But maybe I am!

This is Labor Day weekend, but the "labor and delivery" of our church, the birth of The Well, seems very far off.  Most first-time parents don't even know that they're expecting this early on in a pregnancy.  Thus, ultrasounds haven't even been taken yet.  But if they were, a collaboration between the American Institute of Ultrasound Medicine, John Hopkins, March of Dimes, and Parents Magazine will show that the embryo is undetectable.  All that could be seen is the forming of a gestational sac, a kind of "womb within a womb" to protect the embryo that's just the size of a pin point.  The cells of the sac will soon differentiate to form the placenta, amniotic sac, and eventually some of the cells will form muscles and skin, etc.  Not until the following week 5 will a very faint heart be detected.  Next week cells begin to form the heart and the central nervous system!  Talk about being fearfully and wonderfully made in our mother's womb (Ps. 139).

For actual sonograms and details of week 4 pregnancy see article in Parents Magazine by Kristen J. Gough

After each announcement of a new baby on the way, Christine and I would always get a funny response from our friends that got more intense as babies kept coming.  That response was either an explicit question or just a quizzical look that asked, "was this one planned?"  I can honestly say for this pregnancy a resounding YES and NO.  No, Christine and I were not planning on planting a church when the conference leaders recommended it, but Yes we have felt from the beginning that this was in the mind and heart of our Heavenly Father for some time.  Like physical life, the spiritual life of a new people, a new church, there just is this undeniable mystery that must simply be received whether we had planned for it or not.

Our Well community is mid-way through a 21 day fast to consecrate and cleanse ourselves, and gain clarity as we embark on this process.  I had anticipated and shared with our group that often times when we fast and pray temptations, attachments, things that have a grip in our souls begin to surface.  And for myself an ongoing, looming temptation has surfaced during this time of fasting.  It is the temptation to "genetically modify," tamper, control this mystery in utero.  It's one thing to be responsible, monitor progress, cultivate healthy diet, exercise, rest, etc., but it's quite another to force the pace and development of what God is doing.

The awareness of this temptation has deepened my patience and reliance in pray to the One who's hands are intimately involved creating and forming our community.  The temptation comes in the form of anxieties, as well as navigating diverse expectations people have of what a "typical" church plant should look like, what things should happen and when.  He will indeed complete the work which He has begun in us.

And one point of clarity I believe He has given me is this: "Do not short-circuit what He's doing during the entire 21 days of fasting and prayer."  That includes forming a core team (which I am now renaming as a "huddle"), solidifying an intercessory prayer team, etc.  There's no circumventing "waiting," but there is a way of waiting that is fruitful and productive--wait on the Lord, stated another way, is to stay attentive to His presence.  Like Joshua, I intend to stay at the tent of meeting communing with the Lord.  When He moves, we move.  When He stays we stay.  The great mystery is that God would actually dwell in our camp, in our community, in my life, indeed birth His Spirit and life-giving water deep within--sounds like a "womb within a womb!"

And soon and very soon the heart and nervous system will be well formed; O, for our heart to beat with His life's blood, and for our nervous system to respond to His signals and impulses alone.  Though we be unformed, small as a pinpoint, undifferentiated, even undetectable by some measures we wait in worship and awe because. . .  week 5 is coming!