Deep and Wide

God gave me a lesson in churchplanting...

Church-planting/Church life will bring seasons of going deep and seasons of going wide.

Going deep looks like consolidating with the people you have and pouring into them and building strength into the relationships. These times nurture, build, deepen and refresh, for everyone involved.

Going wide means reaching out, perhaps stepping out of a familiar comfort zone, and going out looking for souls to graft into the body. This exercises faith and puts into action, the truths that we digest in the 'deep' time.

Dangers that God warned me of are...

... that we position ourselves in the 'going deep' position, e.g. hanging out with the people who are grafted in, but simply becoming so comfortable with this, that we don't go deep. It's a four-walls symdrome without intentionality. Ultimately, our locality has little relevance because we have cultivated a community within a community; incestuous and useless.

... that we go wide, but our foundations are shaky. We become vulnerable to attack; confusion, frustration, discouragement, and ultimately we experience disunity. Warriors are weaponless to a spiritual attack. We experience the soil described as thorny ground with the people we minister to.

This gave me insight and awareness of how God works in season. It has helped me to approach each time with intention and purpose. Open to further revelation, challenges, etc...

Good times

Dan