God tricked me!

There is no such thing as fair. I know this. I taught it to my kids. But God? Not fair? You better believe it! He tricked me (although maybe he had to). I felt the call to be a church planter about 8 years ago. My dream was to have this mega church with a big band, lots of people, and lots of resources. I heard stories of guys setting up church and having tons of people show up the first week. I even heard about this guy in Grand Rapids that had 2,000 people show up the first week. Even he thought it was a fluke until 3,000 people showed up the second week. My seminary made it sound so easy although they did tack on the obligatory "This is hard stuff." How hard could it be. You just follow the formulas they taught us and, voila! You have a church! Just follow the recipe on the box.

Then came doing the real thing. I was never more tired of people quoting me the same scripture, "When TWO or more are gathered in my name..." Then came the asparagus analogy. Apparently it takes a long time for asparagus to grow. All I knew was I was not experiencing the "drive-thru" success "everyone else" was experiencing. No mega church, no multiple ministries, no mega-bucks either.

What I got instead was a whole boatload of wonderful and "interesting" people. "Slightly irregular" has become our congregational description. I just finished listening to Eugene Peterson's new book, "The Pastor, My Memoirs". First I see that there is nothing new under the sun. Pastor Peterson ran into the same people we run into every day. They just had different names. Nothing new under the sun. Then the revelation that I had been tricked by God. Instead of a big church, we got people with big problems. They were hard working folks mostly, and well meaning. They grew up in the same culture I grew up in and look how I turned out! I found I didn't want to be a church planter, or a mega church pastor (some people called that a rancher (big spread analogy)). I want to be a shepherd. You know, a small intimate flock. Woolly and itchy but pretty lovable when they aren't butting you or falling off a cliff. But you gotta lov'em. They steal you heart. And I know they have stolen God's heart. Sometimes it is better to be tricked.