that was strange… June 2, 2008

I think I speak for everyone that was at our church yesterday when I say, “That was strange!” Or maybe more accurately, “What just happened?!”

Our church, as we have come to know it over the past three years, just dissolved. It really is just the next step in our journey (yikes, Brent hates that word, but it fits), but for all intents and purposes, we’re done as “the Well.”

To sum things up, a group of us started a church three years ago and could now write a detailed book called How Not to Start a Church! Don’t get me wrong… I don’t think for a second that we didn’t do it the way we were supposed to at the time. It’s just that it wasn’t what the “church world” would deem as successful. However, since we are told not to do things for the praise of man, but of God, here’s a few ways we were so successful:

• we created a place of healing for ourselves and others
• we learned how we have a place in God’s story… and that this story didn’t end in Acts, but is still going
• we learned to be in communion with one another in a very real sense- “breaking bread” in many ways
• we learned to take up each other’s crosses as we fed, clothed, housed those of us in need
• we learned to accept and love one another in our brokenness and pain
• we celebrated new life together- both in marriage and birth

This isn’t the end… although it really felt like it yesterday. Maybe the analogy of being pruned is a bit too strong, but in a way that’s what is happening. We have been searching for a way to continue to be on this mission that God has placed us on, and we think we’ve found it. It doesn’t take away the sting, but it feels good to know that it’s for the greater good as we move on to join another church plant in the area.