New Beginnings

My wife and I came on board full-time here last June, and we brought with us the vision of reaching the unsaved and training people up in the ministry to which God has called them to. I said from the very beginning that it was going to take some time. As I said a few weeks ago, we had to establish a lot of things before we could run full speed ahead with the vision for the church. We had to develop a solid children’s ministry, or we couldn’t very well call ourselves a “family church”, we had to figure out who was going to be in charge of that every Sunday, and at the time, we had very limited resources, so my wife Cindy stepped up and offered to teach it full-time every Sunday. There’s been days when she’s had 15 kids back there by herself, and that’s not an easy job, as you know, we don’t have very much space.

We had to tweak our service times a little bit, to make it more convenient for people to come. We had to post our service times; so we got a banner made, and built a website from scratch to help us advertise. We had to reinvent our youth group. My first night here, we started with 6. Now we have anywhere from 20-30 on any given night, that’s remarkable fro a small town church. We have had over 80 decisions for Christ in our youth since June. We had to get our messages onto CD to make them more available to people.

Another we did, was look at our budget, and we had to cut a few things, and trim back in a few areas so we could move forward.

Anyway, I said all that to say this, when your working towards a Big, god-given vision, it takes time. You have to build a solid foundation before you can build a structure on it.

Habakuk chapter 2 says that if a vision tarries, wait for it, for it will surely come. Good things come to those who wait.

Now, in this year, is when we are as a church shifting our focus to the growth part of our vision, in order to do what God has called us to do, we have to bring in more people. And we’re going to do just that.

Now, along the way, I’ve noticed, and I’m sure you have too, that we have lost a few people. Let me tell you what happens. People get excited when they see a new pastor come on board, and they hear about the plans for the church, and they receive it all with gladness, but then when they don’t see everything happen overnight like they think it should, they begin to lose interest, and they they begin to murmur amongst themselves, saying that we have no vision etc..... Listen, the bible warns about this kind of stuff, you can read all about it in your new testament. And eventually, the very people who were the most excited end up losing interest altogether. And because things don’t always go their way they get upset. The danger in this, is that these type of people try to drag others along with them so that they can feel better about themselves, and after a while sometimes they’re able to succeed. and that’s sad. People who had a bright future in the church and ministry end up doing nothing for God whatsoever. And allot of times they get bitter, and no church is ever good enough for them. There’s no such thing as a perfect church. a church is made up of people, and people aren’t perfect.

So, look, don’t let that happen to you, we’ve got a bright future ahead here at daystar, and the more of you guys we can bring with us, the brighter it will be. a new building (praise god) with plenty of room etc... Mission trips, evangelistic campaigns, community outreach etc...

And our Missionary friends, the Wagners have agreed to join our team here at the church, and help us pioneer a new service that we will be offering maybe on a Friday night. It’s and exciting time to be in on the ground level of what God is doing.

So, if you encounter these murmurers while you’re out and about, and they try to spread that stuff to you, just tell them you don’t want to hear it, don’t even listen to it. Let them know that you’re a loyal part of the team. Listen, every thing God does starts small and grows big, and that’s where we’re headed. If we all work together we can do it.

We’ll be holding some ministry planning meetings in the next few weeks, and we’d love for you all to be a part of them.