Sling Shot

Back in August Church of the Suncoast was forced to make a move to a new location that was outside of our main area until we could get into a new middle school being opened up in January of 2008. Our old school was kicking us out, and we had a six month gap before we can get into the school we really want to be at. Six months trying to build momentum in a totally new community...

Going into the move God gave me a word picture that I didn't really appreciate until we have found ourselves neck deep in the challenges of a move like this (we have moved before, but not this far away). Of course we cast a big vision for the move and did several different marketing pieces but the reality is we lost people. I recently talked to one guy who said, "We just lost contact when you moved down there..." He is typical of the people who were on the fringes, the once a month crowd (1/4 of our church!). So the word picture God gave me going into this was a sling shot. A simple childhood toy.

In order to rocket an object forward with a sling shot you have to pull it backwards as hard as you can. You stress and stretch the rubber chords almost to the breaking point. Over the past few weeks I have felt the pulling of the sling shot. We have lost a few people (the Suncoast just wasn't what they were looking for, nothing major...), November is usually just a lousy attendance month, volunteers go out of town, the staff feels the strain, we feel the strain of needing to hire another person... it just feels like we are being stretched.

BECAUSE, I know God is about to rocket this church forward! My wife is usually the best person in the world at sensing where God is at work and what He is doing and she told me the other day we better get that new staff member in place and get our volunteers pumped because the sling shot is about to be shot! I agree. God is about to launch the Suncoast to a new level with momentum and growth.

I hope this little word picture helps you in your struggles as a church planter / pastor.

Tell me your story or your word picture. Leave a comment...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

GO GOD!!!!!

Unknown said...

As Suncoast volunteers, let's be rocks that fit into the sling shot!!

Anonymous said...

That's the kind of stuff that makes you guys great!

Andre said...

thats a pretty good word picture, God talks to you in ways I would not understand, lol

its not much of a word picture, but I do think that our attendance is going to explode after the move!