PLANTATION PLANNING MEETING
January 9, 2008
Opening prayer
Worship –
Father I Adore You
Prayer Time
Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the
Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and He will
make your paths straight.”
Pray for others to come to
know the Lord, and for the zeal to reach out, and that we would all have Pastor
Dave’s enthusiasm.
Remember that what we plant
tonight may be a seed, but that God will grow it, and knows how it needs to be
pruned.
Help us all to exhibit the
fruit of the spirit and love as is described in 1 Cor.
13.
Lord, strip us of our
ideologies, and lead us to develop a closer walk with you. Jesus is the head of the household and of the
body. May we have tremendous patience
with one another along the way. Let the excitement and concerns both be real
to us, and we give all of these over to you, Lord. Let us truly not just feel the word of love,
but be able to act out that love.
Pray for the youth as they
say goodbye to Cheryl as their leader, and ask that the Lord unify them into
one unit, and that He provide people in the congregation to mentor and guide
these youth. Trust that the Lord has a
plan for them, and ask that the youth would seek and trust in the Lord above
all else.
Lift up the fellowship that
will take place here tomorrow night, and pray for the
unity of that group as they come together to focus on mission work.
Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know
the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.
“Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and
a future.”
Lord, we wait upon you. We wait in your presence, and we are
expecting wonderful promises. We thank
you for guiding us as a body. We pray
for continued unity and continued love for one another. Help us to hear and obey your voice.
Father, we ask that you be
present in everything we say and do tonight so that we can walk closer to you
and can see you.
Discussion
We must be sensitive to every
person, every guest, and every viewpoint.
We are a diverse group, and are allowed to have different opinions.
Question: If we were going to
start a church from scratch tonight, where would we start?
- We’d walk out the front door and start with the
first person we meet.
- Is the idea of starting a church exciting?
- What do you want out of a church? – We all
ultimately want what God wants, but we also all have things that we want
out of a church:
Where are we right now? Where should the emphasis be? Where are our strengths? Weaknesses? The above list is a good start, and we should
go through the above list and decide what are we doing well, what are we not
doing well, and what are we neutral about. Then we can discuss what opportunities lie ahead of us.
Worship – Sanctuary
Lord, prepare me to be a
sanctuary,
Pure and holy, tried and
true;
With thanksgiving, I’ll be a
living
Sanctuary
for you.
Discussion
What is on your mind and in
your hearts regarding this change movement?
What is clear so far in our reinvention
of COH as a church plant?
- Most are on board with it – even though we don’t
all know what ‘it’ is, we are excited to find out. Dave will be bringing back ideas from
his conference. Need to listen to
each other and determine what is important as we restart – so that we can
focus on fewer things and make those things that we do better.
- In America, a Christian church is
a mission church – because so many Americans are unchurched
and don’t read the Bible.
- At least one day of every week needs to be spent
outside of this church – the whole congregation should focus somewhere
else together once a week. A habit
of outreach that goes on more than at Christmas.
- Many Americans seem to be waiting for a crisis to
happen before we get bold or go to church – but there are already crises
happening. How is this going to
change?
- The list we compiled – very few of the things
cost money – it is about people partnering and about Christians taking
responsibility.
- Would love to see all of this stuff happen – but
who is going to do the work? Need
to bring more people into the church to help. We are all busy. Need to bring people to Christ. We are all ministers for Christ in our
schools, jobs, etc. We need
training in how to reach out to people effectively. Many of us are reluctant.
- Americans aren’t desperate enough for
Christ. Americans are busy, and
distracted. It is easy to numb the
pain with food, media, entertainment, drugs, etc. This keeps us from being still and
knowing that He is God. We’re
afraid to be still.
- We live in a ‘want it now’ fast food
society. We need to slow down and
take a longer view of things.
- The above 4 bullet points point to a society that
is self-reliant. We need to take
time out of our busy lives to make God a priority – and it is a message
that others need to hear.
- If we are too busy as believers, how can we
connect with other people who are busy?
- How do we more effectively manage our resources –
our time, money, possessions, talents?
- Pastor Dave envisions a small group component for
Wednesday nights where we can meet and pray about those that need to know
Christ.
- Need to make church attractive to those who are
outside of the church.
- Need to meet God where he draws us. One way to attract people is through
Community outreach events – i.e. the landscaping work we did a Brichta.
- People need to experience God and see that He is
real. Many people know the story of
Jesus, but don’t believe. They need
the intervention of the Holy Spirit to believe.
Closing Prayer
Thank you for this time
together. We ask that you continue to
bless every person among us, and ask that you speak directly to our hearts
concerning COH and the business that goes on here. Pray for Pastor Dave at his Church Plant Boot
Camp, and pray that he will bring back the fire that God has for us.
Thank you
Lord for your leadership and for guiding and drawing us to you. You deserve
our highest praise and we lift our hearts in unity. Thank you for Jim’s leadership, and thank you
Lord that you have not left us to ourselves.
We praise you, and we want to be ready for what you want to do. Make us ready and cleanse our hearts with
your Holy Spirit. Speak to us. Amen.
Those present: