four thirty-five

it's not often that i'm awake in the middle of the night. if i ever am at all, it's brief and very quickly followed by further blessed sleep. i've heard of God waking people up to speak to them - to see a verse or to journal, etc. but it's never been me! and yet now i've been awake for over an hour and as tired as i feel i am, i simply cannot go back to sleep.

and as i lay in bed, praying, reaching out to God, asking if there is something i should be hearing from Him, lifting up my church, my department, my marriage, this bible study we're about to do, and church planting, i was struck with the basicest of ideas: the name of a church incubator.

you see, a friend of mine and i were talking one day about church plants and he was telling me about an idea of helping church plants get on their feet. and it dawned on me that this is probably a new kind of approach to church planting - it was about building a church within the walls of another (like lighting a candle from a fire so it can go and create another fire).

i am quite intrigued by this idea, because as i've been known to tell people, i feel like one of the things i am good at is developing/refining a process and then teaching it to others and then moving on. not being the one to carry on the process, but the implementer, the tutor, if you will.

fascinating! and i've been mulling around in the very back of mind the possibility of being involved in a project like this. particularly since it seems that as of late, i continue to hear of church planting in the most unexpected places. coincidence?

so as i was praying over whatever future church planting has, whether at my own church or in my own life, i thought of a neat name: the greenhouse - growing church plants from a mustard seed.

i love the idea of growing a plant from a seed. and i love the play on the word 'plant'. and i love the idea of a church being grown from faith, which the mustard seed has represented.

so i got up and googled. an online excerpt about the parable of the mustard seed:

The mustard seed stands for the progress of the church from small beginnings. Because of its minuteness, the mustard seed came to symbolize small beginnings, denoting the smallest weight or measure, a tiny particle. The parable focuses on this idea of smallness. The mustard seed is something small that does its part to expand in preparation for the Kingdom of God. The seed represents an instrument by which spiritual growth can be advanced, just as a plant grows and reproduces itself through a seed.

i was expecting to find something on faith. but instead, i find something on the mustard seed representing the church. i tell you, i did not expect that. so another play on words! this is getting fun!

i love that it talks about a plant growing and reproducing itself. imagine building up new churches within a church, a church reproducing itself and sending itself out to reap the harvest.

i know this probably sounds crazy, but as i was praying and wondering why i was still awake, i asked God if He wanted me to get up and write about this. should i, Lord? is this of You? do i act on this?

and i glanced over at the clock and it read 4:35. and i was compelled to finally get up and go look up john 4:35. here is the scripture in the ESV:

35 Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.

jesus was being urged by his disciples to eat when he responded by saying he has food to eat they know nothing of. they thought he meant that someone else had provided him food until he explained that his food is to do the will of God and to accomplish His work. and that the harvest is ready now.

if i were a church getting ready to grow from a mustard seed, i would want my food to be the will of Him who sent me to do it, and to accomplish it. and to remember that the harvest is ready now - that there are people ready and waiting for this church to embrace them and love them. that they are saturated with the need for this church. they are ripe, as the church would be ripe to develop and harvest them.

matthew henry consice commentary explains john 4:35:

Christ compares his work to harvest-work. The harvest is appointed and looked for before it comes; so was the gospel. Harvest-time is busy time; all must be then at work. Harvest-time is a short time, and harvest-work must be done then, or not at all; so the time of the gospel is a season, which if once past, cannot be recalled.

could it also be, though i believe when Christ speaks of the harvest that he refers to the yet unsaved,.. that some folks he has designated to harvest chuches to go out and minister to the unsaved? that my harvest may be churches whose harvest are the lost ones.

hmm.

matthew henry's also says 'God sometimes uses very weak and unlikely instruments for beginning and carrying on a good work.'

praise God! i have a chance!! i am as unlikely as they come and yet God will still use me. there is hope for me. praise God. could i be the unlikely to begin a good work? and that God will bring other unlikelies to carry it on? afterall, it's what i'm good at. i don't think that's a mistake. i know God gives you talents and experiences and skills, that you develop all according to His plan, to be used for His work and to His glory. could it be that he has been raising up a church raiser in me?

i refuse to put words in His mouth or ideas in His head. but i wonder if this very night - the fact that i got up to blog in and of itself is just absurd in my book when there is sleep to be had. and the fact that i have been thinking of church plants lately. and seeing how it all can potentially fit together - my skills and desires and interests and passions and talent and the incredible need - the ready harvest. is it all in my head that it seems right? or is there something here that i will have the incredible advantage of getting to watch God orchestrate before my very eyes?

by the way - thegreenhouse.org domain is currently for sale.