Get to Planning

"A dream is a goal without a plan."

Someone on a social networking site I frequent said that today regarding something not related to church. It made me think about my own goals of being a minister in a church and especially my interest in planting a new church...again. I've been talking about dreams recently on this blog, but I think I need to stop dreaming and start doing.

When I started Community of Grace, I did it without any planning. I just asked people if they were interested to do this thing I was interested in and it started. That's classic ADHD me, but that's really not the way I should have done things. I should have taken time to meet with people who have started churches, talked extensively with the Regional staff and local churches and find a group of people who would commit to being a part of this community for a period of time. But before all of that, I needed to spell out what kind of church God was calling me to plant.

Dreams are nice, but they are just that...dreams. They don't really have a plan to them. Visions are more thought out...and tend to be more God centered than human centered dreams.

So, I will be chatting sometime in the future with the pastors at Mercy Seat in Minneapolis and maybe chatting with some members of the Twin Cities Emergent Cohort. Gather the information and develop a plan. The sticky is chatting with the local congregations who are are in a state of change (several of them are without or soon going to be without pastors) and might not be receptive to some upstart church that they fear would take away members. But maybe talking to them will help, and I truly believe it takes a village to plant a church.

To heck with dreaming...I'm going to vision!