He Ain't Safe

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

    That's a quote from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", where the question is asked if Aslan is safe. In the story, Aslan represents Jesus. And, he's a Lion.  I love that quote. It's a question I've asked before and many of you probably have as well. We really want to know if it's safe to trust Jesus with our life and follow Him.
    I've battled with that question for much of my ministry and I've made war with that question over the last few months as we've contemplated and finally begun the church planting journey. Church planting is an exciting, exasperating, invigorating, and frightening endeavor. And I haven't truly gotten below the surface yet.
    The whole "Is Jesus safe?"question kept me out of church planting for years. I wanted to follow Him if the path was a smooth, well-marked, well-lit asphalt jogging path. However, I wasn't too excited about following Jesus up and down rugged mountain trails, inches from the cliff and certainly not excited blazing a new trail. Yet, here I stand, clinging to edge of all that's familiar and trying to do my best to blindly forge ahead. Jesus seldom (never?) calls us into safe lives. He calls us to leave everything and follow Him. For you, maybe that's across the street. Or across the yard. Or across town. For me, that is church planting.
    The fear isn't gone. Sometimes it's buried. Deep. Other times, it's the walking dead. It taps me on my shoulder and tries to eat my brains. Sometimes it succeeds. When that happens I have to send it back where it came from. I have to remind it and myself that my success isn't based on my strength, my personality, my skills, my good looks (praise God!), or my benchmarks. My success is based on my faithfulness to the God who is not safe, but He IS Good!
    So I will keep following Him on the paths that He leads me on, and I'll blaze the trails that only He has been on before me.  I'll press on knowing that He is Good and He is with me.

KnightdaleMovement.com

Question #3: When is your first service?

   When's the baby due?  When is a good time to ask that question of someone that you don't absolutely know is pregnant? The rule is: Never, Never, Never, Never, Never! Oh, and if you feel confident they are expecting...Never. It is however, perfectly fine to ask when the new church will begin meeting in Knightdale.  The look I get when I answer this question in person is something like this:

The answer to the question is sometime in the Fall of 2017.

    You, like others, may be wondering why it is so far in the future.  The simple reason is, there is a tremendous amount of work to do.  We are truly starting from scratch. There is no team, yet. There is no building, yet. There are very few potential attenders that we have met. But the people are there. We are already meeting some really great people that we want to share Jesus with and train them to do the same with others. The perfect space is out there for us. The team is out there and ready to go, whether they know it or not.  God knows it all and He has been revealing each part so far, as we need it. He will do the same for all the other pieces.  

    So, start praying for our launch in the Fall of 2017. God is listening!

Question #2: Where's the church?

I've had a lot of people ask, "Where is your building located?"  The answer is, I have no clue!  The church is scattered around the Knightdale area, some may already be a part of Christ's church but most are not even Christians yet.  That's why we are here in Knightdale now. We want to build a community of believers using Jesus' blueprint to shine for His glory!  We won't know for quite some time where our physical meeting place will be. We will most likely rent a space for some time. It will probably be a location where we set up and break down each week, such as a school.  Pray for us, as God already has in mind the perfect space for the perfect time when we gather together!

You've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe.

    There are times in our lives when we just don't have a clue.  That time for me has encompassed the last 39 years and 3 months.  It has been a mind blowing adventure seeing God unfold His plan in all of this over the last couple of months.  I understand a little more every day. But the next revelation unveils the next question.  But the "not-knowing" makes life... interesting, to put it mildly.
    Through my learning process in all of this, I'm learning a lot of you have questions too.  So over the next week or so, I plan to answer some questions I've come across in talking with people about our journey and church planting in general.  I'll try to keep'em short. But, I'm a preacher.  I'll do my best.  Stay tuned!