I wrote the following 6 months before Grace and Mercy Church was started. I had no idea what God would do, but I knew I could trust Him. I'm glad that I did. We've been at it, with these hopes and this heart for 4.5 years and have seen God do some really amazing things.

“God has sovereignly chosen to work in the world by beginning with the weak who are on the ‘outside,’ not the powerful who are on the ‘inside’.” From When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett

What would it look like to live as if this was true?

Most of what I’d been taught about church planting is that you have to reach the influencers to make a difference. If you want to be sustainable and support a family while planting a church, you need people with wealth.

Most of us have taught that if you want to reach the culture then you have to reach the influencers if you want to make a difference. If want to get something done, you need wealth, power, and influence.

You should plant a church in a place that is new, fast growing or a big city, yet while this happens the places that are old and poor are being abandoned or supported by churches who don’t share a zip code with them.

God uses the weak things, the poor things of this world to shame the wise.

So we plant. A church. Our desire is to be poor so that Christ may become richness for us.

We hope to be a people who gather during the week, whatever that may look like. But also on Sunday as a special time set aside to worship God together, to hear from God and have our lives slowly changed by him.

We also hope to be a people who pray. Knowing that in a culture that values results, Jesus values relationship and this relationship needs tending. It might not feel as though things are getting done, but they are, and we become aware of the grace that God is working in our midst as we become a people who pray.

We also hope to serve. Not as a new thing that God is doing, but joining with God who is already at work in this area. We are sent to be a light in the darkness and we seek to do this through service.

We don’t know how this is going to turn out as we strive to live out the reconciling love of God in our area. But we will start to live out our faith in a sincere way and allow God to do his work as we seek to follow him.