DREAMING TOO SMALL

I just read this prayer written by the British explorer Sir Francis Drake over 400 years ago -

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord.

Man, that's a bold prayer - and I love it. It's good for me personally and it's so suitable for us as a church.

In this, our tenth year, it would be so easy to look around with a sense of contentment, because the truth is God has been very good to us as we have grown to become one of the largest protestant congregations in our town of half a million people.

We survived.

We got established.

We get a good crowd on Sundays.

We have some great programs running.

We're making an impact in other countries.

We're helping other church planters.

But if that is the end of the line, we dreamed too small. If you put having a building into that mix and then think we would totally have arrived, you got it all wrong.

By the fall of this year when we celebrate our 10th Anniversary, we will need to have made some bold decisions. Most of them center around whether we are going to consolidate or move forward. It's a question of whether we've fulfilled our dream or dare to dream bigger.

Has God done all he can do around here or is there a heck of a lot more that he wants to be done?

Pioneers or settlers?

There is always the danger that yesterday's radicals become today's diehards. Trust me, that's not what will happen!