Looking forward to hanging out with some church planters tonight. We’re hosting a church planting event for the ARC at Ebenezers.

Thinking about sharing the unauthorized version of my church planting story. I’m a failed church planter. The first church I tried to plant never got off the ground. The great irony is that I put together a 25-year plan for one of my seminary classes and I actually got an A on the project. The church plant? I got a big fat F.

I had zero experience going into the plant. I had preached some, but I had never been on a church staff. I led worship and told Lora to play the keyboard real loud. I wore huge glasses that required two hands to adjust. And our first marketing campaign? Complete waste of money. Let’s spend lots of money to invite as many people as possible to church so they can see how poorly we do church and insure they’ll never come back again. I’m barely exaggerating. I actually designed our first direct mail marketing piece. Thankfully, not many people responded to the invitation.

There you have it. The unauthorized version.

I think God does some things BECAUSE of us. But He does more IN SPITE of us. In the words of Psalm 127: “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builder labor in vain.”