Daily Archives: September 8, 2008

September 8, 2008 · 6:40 pm

I found this interesting

… seeing that we have a church in this size range.

Via Covenant Church News

Size of Churches: ‘Small Is the New Big’
IRVINE, CA – Following a year of planting churches in Bangkok, Thailand, NewSong Covenant Church pastor David Gibbons has changed his views of what constitutes the best size for a church.
“I visited other churches and discovered that the Evangelical Covenant denomination there (Thailand) had 4,000 people in roughly 400 churches,” Gibbons says in a lengthy interview with Leadership Journal. “It hit me. Back home, NewSong had about 4,000 people in four congregations. I saw four churches with 4,000 people versus 400 churches with the same number of people, and the question I felt God posing to me is, Who’s stronger?
Gibbons’ answer to that question has led his congregation to begin planting  what he calls organic-sized churches. “Not house churches, but mid-sized,” he says. Mid-sized congregations, which he calls “verges,” have attendance of 30-300.
Gibbons questions the mindset that bigger is better. “Small is the new big,” he adds. “Big isn’t bad, but it’s overrated.”

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Filed under church, In the News, Quotes

September 8, 2008 · 3:22 pm

Forgiveness

“Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with simple acts of contrition and corresponding forgiveness, can so often be shown to be based on nothing much other than pride and misunderstanding, and the forgetting of the humanity of the other – and land, of course.” P.127 The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith

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September 8, 2008 · 3:43 am

So, the time has come…

Sometimes we get to see a person demonstrating obedience to God.  The places He takes us aren’t very often what we would have dreamed up – but there you go – God’s ways sure are not like ours. 

Randall resigned this morning.  He’ll be off to a new place soon.  In a field.  We may have to write a new version of "The Church in the Wildwood"  if you are old enough to know how that one goes.  At least his neighbors will be quiet – or far enough away that they can party and he’ll never know.

We have learned so much from God as he has pastored our church.  Now, I guess, God needs him somewhere else for a bit.  We send him off with blessings and prayers and a lot of tears.  But it will be good.  If God is in it, it will be good.

But it is hard saying farewell to someone who has been a good friend.  Oh, we don’t have to stop being friends – we’ll keep our connections in this blog world.  But things won’t be quite the same and we will miss the presence of Randall and Lauralea. 

We love you, Randall and Lauralea, and that will not end here.

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Filed under Day to Day, Dealing with stuff