Schooled

Last night, 7 of our staff, 2 guys, and our 4 staff kids (3yrs and younger) made it home after a grueling 400 hour trip from Wichita, Kansas…ok it only felt like 400 hours by the time we dragged ourselves into our beds. I could have done without the van ride, but the weekend was absolutely worth it

Our team attended the very first Christ the Victor Church Plant School at our World Impact Wichita site!  I love to learn, and did we!  Thursday evening through lunch on Sunday was packed with teaching sessions and strategy meetings that left us little time to think about anything other than church planting.  Even with my love of learning it was almost enough to fry my brain.  By Friday night I felt like there was a tornado of thoughts whirling in my scull.  It's going to take us awhile to process it all.

Christ the Victor is an association of churches, with common values and commitments that we hope and pray will be used to start a church planting movement in the cities of America.  We spent time talking about our identity, which can be summed up in these three shared values:

·        A shared spirituality centered on Christ and celebrated through the church year.

·        An historic theology anchored in Scripture and summarized by the Nicene Creed.

·        A focused mission of reproduction resulting in church planting.

We also talked about strategies for church multiplication and training indigenous leaders.  World Impact is blessed by some brilliant minds and experienced missionaries and it is an honor to link arms with them in this endeavor.

Aside from the teachings, our St. Louis team had time to strategize about our own church planting plans and what we feel God is calling us to do.  God has brought, from our neighborhood, two quality young men along side our missionary team, who we believe will be used mightily by God in this process.  They soaked in the weekend, asked the right questions, and are willing to seek the Lord’s will for their lives as we start to flesh out the steps we feel God calling us to right now.

I’m beyond excited, and a little terrified too, at the task that lies ahead of us, but one thing I know, and as we told ourselves all weekend, “the battle belongs to the Lord!”  We have a lot of work ahead of us with some really big goals in the next year.  The eight of us don’t have it in us.  But, God does.  We’re going to rely on our prayers, your prayers, and the miraculous work of a God who can part seas, conquer death, and who can redeem the lost of our city!