Of All The Things I've Lost...

Things that I have lost since planting a church:

1. One perfectly good utility knife.
2. One defective folding chair.
3. The church checkbook.
4. Twenty-five pounds (just when you thought I couldn't get any hotter).
5. My delusions (well, most of them anyways).
6. My faith in Christian leadership (I swear, sometimes it feels like we are arguing about the color of the wallpaper as the house is burning down around us).
7. The better part of my sanity.
8. My ability to care about trivial matters.
9. My garage (it's still there it's just loaded with chairs and tables and speakers, oh my).
10. My patience with people who like to talk, but do nothing.

Things that I have found since planting a church:

1. Things in the people around me that I never saw before.
2. A new job.
3. The confidence to do what I'm called to.
4. The church checkbook (It was on the roof of the car).
5. That I don't have everything figured out yet.
6. A trust that I've never known before.
7. Half a bag of chips stuck under the seat of my car (not bad really).
8. That audacity and the ability to look like you know what you're doing even when you don't can take the place of experience and skill 90% of the time.
9. The peace that comes from knowing that no matter what happens God will be there in the morning.
10. The things that really matter.