Some Days

Some days what we are doing feels so slow-going . . . even insignificant. —church planter Jared Looney of the Bronx Fellowship, from an email I received this morning

I needed to read that today. Needed to discern a little bit of the melancholy in Jared’s full email. Not because I want this friend and mentor of ours to ever be the least bit discouraged, but because I find myself a wee bit discouraged this week.

Of course my discouragement is not quite so noble as the feeling I might get because we're not seeing rapid progress in the network of home churches we’ve planted . . . because we haven’t planted a network of home churches, though God-willing we’ll do so in his timing.

I suppose what I’m feeling is rooted in loneliness. Right now, we’re between two worlds: not fully enjoying the familiar comforts of our Christian culture, and not yet established enough in the kinds of relationships that make the sacrifice seem worthwhile. In Jared’s words, we’re intent on being the kind of missionaries that move “into the high rise in Tokyo or into the village in Kenya, that [live] among the people and incarnate the Gospel there through relationships. But in this case . . . [we’re] simply moving out into relationship in a lost world right here among the broken and the blind in the U.S.A.”

I can live with that. In fact, we’ve chosen to obey God’s call to do this very thing. Some days I’m giddy with the possibilities of what God’s asked of us. And some days I’m lonely in this calling.

Some days, I need emails like Jared’s. Emails that remind me that no matter how I feel . . .

. . . We are following a missionary Lord and participating with Him in the work of redemption.

. . . Mission and incarnation is certainly not a place of comfort or safety, but the impact of a missionary people is immeasurable.

. . . Generations will be set free as we persist in serving the cause of Christ in our city.

Some days I need more prayers than other days.