The Well Community Church was legally established 13 October 2020, held it's first streamed service on 14 February 2021, and officially launched on April 4th that same year. Planning for a home church service began in March 2021 with the first official home church worship celebration taking place April 18th. Since then, the ride has been thrilling, stressful, rejuvenating, frustrating, and nearly every other emotion a group can feel while engaged with doing something truly different.
But I want to rewind before all that, closer to that October 13th establishment date. In October, a group of three minister buddies got together to talk about the goods and bads of modern church and ministry life. Pastors Frank, Doug, and Joseph were talking about all the aspects of "traditional church" that seem to hold back many who feel a passion for ministry and mission: We can't spend money on a mission trip because we have to pay for flowers. We can't start a new outreach group because it isn't inline with the optics of church "branding". We can't plug in new individuals who want to roll up their sleeves and get more involved in church service because we can't upset the social order of things. We can't, we can't, we can't.
But what if we could?
It was a simple thought, but a powerful one. What if instead of shackling God's work according to the "we can'ts" of typical church life, we threw caution to the wind and just said "we can"? Maybe we could create an entirely new type of church unlike what our community had seen before. Maybe we could reach people who had previously swore off "church people" forever. Maybe we could do something with impacts bigger than ourselves.
When we look at the genesis of the early church, there is an interesting "organizational meeting" that appears to take place in Acts 6...
2 The Twelve summoned the whole company of the disciples and said, “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 This proposal pleased the whole company. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a convert from Antioch. 6 They had them stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 So the word of God spread, the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:2-7, CSB)
I wonder if these apostles knew what they had started when they formed this initial little "organization". They went from passionate spokespeople to the leaders of a fledgling church. From this group, we would get individuals with monstrous faiths: Philip who would perform many miracles and preach to thousands and Stephen who would be the first to reach glory as a martyr in the face of the "religious establishment". They may not have known it, but they were doing something bigger than themselves which would echo through eternity.
I wonder if it ever looked like things were bleak. I wonder if the group wondered if the whole thing would collapse when internal disagreements arose. I wonder if they ever questioned whether this was a "real thing" or just the passion project of a few attention-seeking bulwarks. God had a plan for it all.
I am here to tell all of you that God has a plan for you, he has a plan for me, he has a plan for this church, and he has a plan for this community. We are not here to 'make things happen on our own' because what we are after is something bigger than our own dreams. With this mindset, we march beyond the 1-year mark into a future full of so many glorious things that we can not even begin to comprehend.
Happy Birthday, Well Community Church. Happy Birthday and don't ever stop saying "we can"... because so long as we align our calling with that of God's, our "can't" becomes God's "will".
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