The Pastor’s Garage September 11th, 2020

Wow September 11th. It felt strange to type that. It took me back to many
years ago and walking the halls of university and seeing images of the twin
towers burning. One of the audio visual tech people had set up a tv in the
hallway for students. I remember thinking, “Was this a movie?” It was truly
hard to believe. Most people I have talked to can recall the exact moment
they saw the footage.

I wonder if March 16th and 17th will have that kind of long lasting memory
for me. That was the day that we decided to keep our kids home from school
because at that time no one had any idea about COVID-19 and what was going
to happen. On March 17th the schools recommended kids stay home and then by
Friday schools were closed. Church was closed that weekend and you know the
rest of the story. I remember sitting in the church sanctuary that Tuesday
feeling sort of shell shocked as I prayed for the church and for our
community. I am not sure I am over that shock yet. It has left me wondering
and thinking about a lot of things.

As much as it was hard to be closed for all those months there is something
it did for me as a pastor that I don’t want to lose. A hunger and a passion
to be about my Father’s business. To be doing kingdom stuff and to see the
church reach the lost for Christ and for Christians to grow in their
Christlikeness.

As we have been allowed to reopen I am happy. But I am also afraid that I
will lose that nagging ache in my heart for more of God and to be about his
business. I don’t want to lose this hunger and thirst for righteousness. I
recorded our last Realignment – 2020 video today and it is currently
uploading. Much of that video is me sort of spilling my heart and trying to
order my thoughts about where this ache should be leading us. I believe I
am not the only one feeling these things and my hope is that if you have
had similar feelings or if you do, you won’t lose them. Part of the
motivation for our Realignment series was to give people more to chew on
during the shutdown but it was also motivated out of the realization that
church need to evolve and grow, but in order to do that we needed to make
sure our foundations were right and then when that was established we’d be
able to find our bearings again.

The Realignment program with the videos and handouts can be found at
grenfellap.com/realignment-2020/ if you are interested. I know some
of you have been working through them, and well with it being summer and
pandemic and harvest and whatever else has distracted us, some of you have
not. That’s ok. We are going to preach through the series all over again
starting late September-ish or early October. At the same time we are going
to be encouraging you to work through the video series in small groups. I
think getting the Realignment teachings in our head and learning to
function in small groups are going to be integral to our movement forward.

*Spoiler alert!*

The entire shutdown over several months and the process of working through
and trying to teach the Realignment series has continually pointed me
towards moving our church towards becoming a cell based church. Call it
house church, micro-church, cell church, life groups, cell church… etc…
I think we need to make a move towards this kind of church. I’ll be sharing
my thoughts about this a bit on Sunday as I share and I poured out some of
my heart in the Realignment video I posted today. Right now my thoughts are
raw, unrefined, and filled with passion. I don’t have clear plans and
ideas, but I believe God is leading us towards realigning and redefining
ourselves. Jesus did say in John 14:12 that we would do greater things!
Look it up. Are we ready to do greater things or should we just keep
plodding along?

Just an FYI regarding Firm Foundations for those who have been asking about
that, I am looking at early October to get going again. I have really
missed doing that!

I hope you have a great day and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

God bless,

Pastor Dave

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