image: NASA
One of the points of conversation following our FunDay the other day was the beauty of a cluster of churches working together with a missional focus.
We know that there’s no way The Bridge could have, by herself, provided the kind of quality event that people experienced this past Saturday during the Family Fun Day. We could not have handled the expense, procured the necessary supplies, or raised the army of volunteers needed on our own. One of the the things that made the day great was seeing so many of our District churches, all with different histories and of varying sizes, partnering together to love on the people of Penn Hills and demonstrate solidarity with us.
The same is true for church planting: for some churches, there’s no way they could, by themselves, daughter a healthy, multiplying church; at least not yet. For all kinds of reasons, raising up a church planter and sending them out with a healthy team of co-laborers and maybe a good chunk of financial backing (not to mention the prayer support and cheerleading of a mother church) is not really plausible given the present reality of some churches . But that doesn’t mean they are exempted from the call of church planting or living as missionaries in their spheres of influence.
The beauty of planting and working as a cluster is that the ‘churches that couldn’t’ suddenly CAN find themselves making a tremendous difference and planting healthy churches through partnership.
Sure, there are the needs to make sure there’s a shared vision and sacrifice and maybe someone to give point-leadership during the process… and I know it wouldn’t be easy or clean (but I haven’t yet found the easy, clean parts of following Jesus), but what I saw this past weekend is a small glimmer of what a few connected churches and groups of committed people can do when working in harmony. It really could change the world.
