Mile 2: Church Planting Marathon

Sunday at Capstone I mentioned Mile 2 is coming up on us.  During our Plant Team Building Days (Sept 2008 – Jan 2009) I used the illustration of church planting as a marathon not a sprint.  As we shared the vision of our launch on January 11th we knew this would be our first mile. Jan 11th was our first mile marker in the journey.  We are fast approaching our Mile 2 marker.  This an important time for us because we are stepping up in all the areas at Capstone and even creating new ones.  We are taking the things we have learned since Mile 1 and the momentum we are  carring from a great summer into Mile 2.

This Spring I ran a half marathon (not crazy enough to do a full one) in Charoltte. As I trained and ran the race I learned a lot.  The begining of the race was full excitement and rush as I set out to accomplish this goal.  At Mile 1 it was crowded and you saw many faces. Some were going a lot faster, while I passed others.  Pretty much everyone is just jacked up to get this thing started.  Mile 2 though the crowd began to spread out.  I had to realize I couldn’t keep this pace up for another 11 Miles.  People began setting their pace for the long haul and everyone began to get into their groove.  The faces began to get familiar as we ran together.

Church planting is the same way.  Starting up we were all excited about the mission and vision, sharing with anyone who would listen.  Mile 1 (The Launch) we had a LOT of people.   We saw lots of faces, but many came and went.  Whether it was just a curiousity, dislike or different mission not everyone who was at mile 1 is at mile 2.  And that is ok.  it is the nature of running and church planting.

As we get to Mile 2 the faces are familiar who have latched onto the mission and vision of Capstone. Some have been beside us since  the start, while others have recently come up beside us.  We have a solid group we have set the pace with. We are still fresh and engergize with this race set before us.  We realize our make up at Mile 3 might look different as we hit hills and it gets harder.  We know that we have our destination and Christ is with us in our race to reach as many people as possible with the Gospel of Christ.

Luke 19:10 “I came to seek and to save those that are lost.”