how we got involved in church planting.

Once, when we were in Cedar Falls, a lady in Lowe's started up a conversation with us, and eventually asked us why we had moved to the area.  I got to tell her we were church planting, and had been there for however long it had been at the time.  Her face went totally blank for a second, and then she said truthfully, "I'm Catholic, and I have no idea what that means."

Well, sure.  That's understandable.  Church planting isn't exactly a hot topic around the generalized dinner tables of America.  It's not even a commonly recognized ministry pursuit in all Christian circles, unlike, say, missions.  So I think there's a lot of ambiguity surrounding what it is and why we do it... and even what, exactly it is that we do.

So, first, here's the main gist of how we got involved.  Our original home church, Cornerstone, is a nondenominational, Bible-believing church that holds as a central core value the ministry of reaching the next generation (college students) with the gospel.  We were living in Ames, Iowa, where Iowa State University is, and our college ministry was really thriving.  Students were being reached, and lives were being radically changed by the good news.

Cornerstone started feeling a pull to reach not only its own community with the gospel, but other communities as well.  (Think about it like domestic missions, if that helps.)  So they decided to staff and fund a start-up church in Iowa City, to reach the students at the University of Iowa.  Todd and I were sitting in the Members' meeting the night they announced the plan, and watched as about eighty community folks and students volunteered to uproot their lives to help.  We looked around us at the volunteers, and were like, "That's all fine and good for them.  Glad they're going.  We, however, are never ever leaving Ames."

We ended up having a couple of kids, and buying a house.  (Our "forever" home!)  We got more and more deeply rooted in our community.  And then they announced they were planting another church in Cedar Falls, at the University of Northern Iowa.  And we were like, "Great for them!  Hope everyone who goes has a great time."  We clearly felt no pull to a life of church planting.

It was kind of a weird season of our lives, and long story short, the pastor leading Candeo (the Cedar Falls church plant) asked Todd if we would come.  I still don't really know why.  It was kind of out of left-field, but maybe that's what we needed.  We both realized pretty quickly that this was what God was asking us to do.  And it was the easiest and hardest decision I think we've ever made.

Todd isn't on staff with the church (he works in auto insurance), so he had to apply for jobs, and when he got a job that started before we sold our house, he had to move up there without me and the kids for a while.  We sold our beautiful big house and bought an adorable, tiny (1100 square foot!) crackerbox of a house for all of us, and we were thrown into more intense ministry than we'd previously ever experienced.  I can talk about it more later in the week, but I can say this now: it was hard.

So why on earth did we do it again a couple years later when Candeo decided to reach out and plant yet another church?  I still don't really know, but I can explain it the best I can tomorrow!