When I was talking to Eric the other day, I had to stop at one point and say, “You know, you were here when there were about fifty people in the church. Now there are about 450. That’s a good thing!” (That’s 450 in both congregations combined, for those who don’t know we are 1 church in 2 congregations and 42 cells, right now). I was sort of reminding myself, too, that it is a very good thing. Eric agreed that it has been a fun and productive decade. We dreamed we might get to do some of what we do. Having gone through the process of seeing our dreams realized, it is more amazing than we imagined! And it was hard, too.
Being changed, changing people, and working with God as he transforms people from the inside out is more than just hard. Relying on miracle everyday and then seeing them happen all the time can wear you out, but in a good way. What I mean is: it wears out my ability to not rely on miracle and wears out my ability to keep myself at the center of things. The process of watching Circle of Hope grow and change rather uncontrollably, most of the time unpredictably, has worn out my ability to claim I had a whole lot to do with it, really (although Eric and I did show up for it!). Seeing people stick with God and the church and complain and criticize even as they love and nurture, seeing them claim they can’t do it and then triumph repeatedly, seeing someone after someone resist the Holy Spirit and then give in to God’s persistent love, has just worn out my ability to doubt that God is with us. What a blessing.
Now we are blessed with changing some more. It is wearing people out. At 450 you can’t be involved in everything our even know everyone. Some leaders (like me) need to start doing things and relating differently. We need new structures (like CoHOp is building) that bring more entrepreneurs and managers into the leadership. Caring people who were comfortable with the old days need to get new insight, step up, and take their new opportunities (like Eric, and Forest, and Zach, and Tracey, and Lauren, and Jesse, and Liz and Jonny, and so many others are doing – amazing!). What is coming up next year will give us ample opportunity to step up; we’ve been trying to warn you. It could be a big, tiresome mess, as usual. How wonderful to have much more opportunity for God to be revealed.
It’s so fun, isn’t it? It’s hard work, too. I’m glad to be doing it, and I’m glad Jesus is doing it with us. This is the whole point of it. It can be stressful when we burden ourselves with developing every relationship and connecting with every person, but when we do it as a community–it is simple and fun. In a certain sense, building the Kingdom of God through community is the only way to do it; not just the best way.