The challenge that lies ahead

Have you ever gotten so much great information in a short period of time that you feel a little overwhelmed? I've heard someone say before that it's like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hydrant. One of the things I have been very aware of this summer is that we need to make some changes to the way we do things at Freedom, or we will lose our effectiveness. Having 300 plus people come to worship each week is exciting, but if we still have only 300 plus people coming a year from now we have missed an amzing opportunity. Remember, there are thousands of unchurched people in Greer. In fact, I heard a statistic recently that 60% of Greenville county is unchurched! I am constantly looking ahead to find what we need to do to reach as many of these people as possible.

Two things recently have given me so much to think about in this area. One is the book, Go Big that I have quoted on some earlier blogs. The second one happened yesterday. I was able to have lunch with Tony Morgan and Michael Brown from New Spring church in Anderson. For any of you who are'nt familiar with New Spring, it is a church that is 7 years old that averages somewhere around 8,000 people a week in worship. That's an amazing number, but the next number is what really gets me excited. Last Saturday, New Spring held a baptism service where they baptized 562 people! That is more people than all 42 churches in the Greer Baptist Association baptized last year combined. Anyway, Tony and Michael took 90 minutes with me to help me see some things from a different perspective. The things they talked about and encouraged me to think about are all rolling around in my head today. I'm not going to share those things with you now, because I need to process all of these things God is trying to get me to see before I can share them clearly.

So why do I tell you this? If you don't already do it, pray for Freedom and pray for me as the pastor. If you do already pray for that, keep it up! I believe God can do even more amzing things here in Greer than He is doing in Anderson, and I want our church to be right in the middle of it. For that to happen we are going to have to make some changes, try the impossible, fail a few times, and not be satisfied with business as usual. Let's do it together.