The down between two ups...
That's how I was describing how I'm doing/feeling to someone yesterday... the down between two ups.
A couple of things (I think) play into this current down...
First, I've never hung around much. I've always moved and moved, at least in my adult life. After college, it was Alaska. Then, it was Portland. Then, the Netherlands, and after that North Carolina. Then back to Portland in 2001. This is the longest I've lived anywhere. We're also coming up on three years of marriage, second year of Evergreen, so the general theme right now is "settling in." We're past moving in, past the newness of things... time to get on with the business of living- and that's work.
Secondly, where we are at as a community is probably also contributing. Where are we at? In between, I think.
When we where 30 people, I was working hard for growth... trying to push, expand, connect... because we could! Growth, at that point, cost us nothing. It was all upside.
At this point, though, growth begins to cost us.
It costs us the intangibles like intimacy (we don't plan to ever grow to a size that we can't continue to do what we've been doing as a community, but there's still a difference between a 50 person church and a 150 person church). It costs us the time and effort it takes to help people begin to organically structure themselves. Growth means we have to move, find a different space. Growth means we have to get more hours for Rich and Chris... a single staff person just can't do justice to more than 100 people. Yeah, it helps when the community is taking care of the community, but it's still not feasible, and to gear up for church planting, we need to be investing in people...
Anyway, I think the issues of impending change and growth make me subconsciously less enthused... Not that I don't love seeing new people come, people connecting, people growing. It's more that I realize it's a bittersweet thing. I love that more come. I grieve that it means we change.
But I guess that's part of the life cycle of a church plant. We're not a house church- we have to grow to get to a point where we can sustain and plant other churches. I think I'll just always look back on this first year as a pretty special place, realizing it would have been unhealthy to stay there forever, but appreciating it for what it has been.
A couple of things (I think) play into this current down...
First, I've never hung around much. I've always moved and moved, at least in my adult life. After college, it was Alaska. Then, it was Portland. Then, the Netherlands, and after that North Carolina. Then back to Portland in 2001. This is the longest I've lived anywhere. We're also coming up on three years of marriage, second year of Evergreen, so the general theme right now is "settling in." We're past moving in, past the newness of things... time to get on with the business of living- and that's work.
Secondly, where we are at as a community is probably also contributing. Where are we at? In between, I think.
When we where 30 people, I was working hard for growth... trying to push, expand, connect... because we could! Growth, at that point, cost us nothing. It was all upside.
At this point, though, growth begins to cost us.
It costs us the intangibles like intimacy (we don't plan to ever grow to a size that we can't continue to do what we've been doing as a community, but there's still a difference between a 50 person church and a 150 person church). It costs us the time and effort it takes to help people begin to organically structure themselves. Growth means we have to move, find a different space. Growth means we have to get more hours for Rich and Chris... a single staff person just can't do justice to more than 100 people. Yeah, it helps when the community is taking care of the community, but it's still not feasible, and to gear up for church planting, we need to be investing in people...
Anyway, I think the issues of impending change and growth make me subconsciously less enthused... Not that I don't love seeing new people come, people connecting, people growing. It's more that I realize it's a bittersweet thing. I love that more come. I grieve that it means we change.
But I guess that's part of the life cycle of a church plant. We're not a house church- we have to grow to get to a point where we can sustain and plant other churches. I think I'll just always look back on this first year as a pretty special place, realizing it would have been unhealthy to stay there forever, but appreciating it for what it has been.
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