In the world of church planting, very few things come straight at you.
Once in a great while you will get a big fat softball right over the middle of the plate. When you do, hit that mother out of the park! Then run the bases and celebrate with the team. Ride the momentum into the next innings.
Most of the time, things change. Plans change. Teams change. People change their minds about joining you in this adventure. Pastors will change their story when it comes to supporting you financially. Stuff changes. You get thrown a lot of curve balls. You even have to duck once in a while.
Get good at adapting to change.
I learned a valuable lesson when we were confronted with a curve ball one night early on in our adventure. We showed up to the community center where we were meeting a couple of times a month and guess what, the property management team had failed to let us know they were going to repaint the interior of the building that weekend. So an hour and a half before the gathering, we had to make a call. The place was a mess. There were paint tarps all over the floor and it smelled very strongly of fresh paint. We were able to take some chairs outside and do a very cool outdoor gathering. It all worked out great. We even had a squirrel chirping what could only have been a mating call to all the ladies in the woods. It gave that gathering a special flavor that we would not have experienced otherwise.
When we arrived and found the community center in that state I got very frustrated and upset. this rippled out to the team. I was also concerned that an impromptu outdoor gathering could cause issues with the neighbors and damage our reputation in the community. So as I processed the decision , I not only revealed my frustration and concerns in a way that effected the team, I caused them to question whether I could handle a curve ball as easy as this one.
I went home that night and made a decision to practice hitting curves. Now, when a curve ball comes flying in, I can stand int he box with great confidence and hit most of them.
Thank God that church planting is almost all curve balls. We get better all the time.
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