100 Churches- Thankful for Our Fellowship

We wanted to plant a church... but we also wanted to be part of something bigger. Our desire for relationship and the need for accountability was something that couldn't be satisfied ploughing a lone furrow. Being part of Harvest Bible Fellowship has been without question one of the greatest blessings I have known.

From their willingness to invest in some young guy from Scotland, to the training we received during my church planting residency in Chicago, to the visit of James MacDonald to encourage and care for a young, raw and terrified launch team a few weeks out from starting, to the ongoing support and encouragement of Kent Shaw and his team and Kirk Vanmaanen in particular, to the deep relationship that has sprung up with Harvest Barrie and the stellar investment of Todd Dugard and the Elders there... In all honesty I could go on and on and on...

So here are some of the things that have stood out in terms of our experience planting a church with Harvest Bible Fellowship:

1. The pursuit of God being unusually glorified in all things. It is the heartbeat of every event, conversation, email that I have participated in around Harvest. It is the evident priority in every Senior Pastor I have met who has planted a church in our family of churches.

2. The readiness to not think they have all the answers... And to acknowledge their frailties. My first conversation here in Scotland about longing to plant a church with a culture of humility has found an example to follow in the folks I have found myself in a room with in our wider church family. From the first conversation I ever had with Kent Shaw to the preaching at Harvest University and much in between there is a heart-felt honesty and transparency about our desperate need of grace.

3. The unreasonable levels of patience they have shown with the slow work of churching planting in the slow ground of Scotland. It strikes me that there is much talk about church planting in Scotland but not much by way of coming alongside and prayerfully supporting and encouraging, never mind materially investing in the activity to the extent that is so evidently required. We have had two or three churches in Scotland demonstrate great kindness towards us. My sense is that much of the gathering around church planting events by folks here is often more about people's love for preaching than it is for planting (there is another blog post in there somewhere). HBF have exceeded all that could be deemed obligation (in reality they had none) to support and bless the work here.

4. Relationships. There is not one of the other Harvest pastors that I would have any hesitation in contacting. All my conversations with them have so blessed me by how interested and concerned they are for our nation, our church and my family. I get to hang out with a group of them in Canada at the end of the month and I can't tell you how excited I am to be in a room with those men for a few days (although I worry about the lengths they may go to in trying to convince me to support their hockey team).

5. The freedom to preach without apology. There is something immensely freeing about doing something you live when it is expected of you by those around you. I love on my people best when I have liberty to preach with boldness. When I walk past our first pillar every Sunday morning and read 'preaching the authority of God's Word without apology' there is something immensely foundational and grounding in that. That is the platform on which I preach.

6. Allowing me to plant a church that has been such a blessing to my family, where my kids are growing in their love for Jesus and my wife is encouraged by other godly women who are as fired up to follow Jesus with all they are as she is. If I had one regret it would be that Alison hasn't had more time to be blessed by being with other pastor's wives because she has been so blessed by the time she has spent with Cheryl Dugard, Libby Ballantyne, Nancy Shaw, Lynn Donald and Susan MacDonald. In so many ways they represent what our fellowship is about.

7. To not have to compromise on Biblical convictions or the basic culture of the church. What we are is plain. We are clear, simple and urgent. Our prayer is that God uses that to multiply disciples here in Glasgow and across our wider church family as people turn to that kind of foundation in a world that doesn't really believe in anything any more.

So 100 churches (actually 102 and two more planting this weekend). 'This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.'

[embed]http://www.vimeo.com/93622538[/embed]