Apparently you don't go through Harrodsburg...

...to get to Campbellsville. Last Thursday night, I was scheduled to speak to a group at Campbellsville University. I left plenty early, and even had time to stop for gas/dinner along the way in Harrodsburg.

About 90 minutes into my trip, I realized that I wasn't on the way to Campbellsville. Instead, I was on the bypass in Danville. I called to find out how to get from Danville to Campbellsville, realizing I'd made a mistake. I thought it might add 30 minutes to my trip, and I could still arrive in time to speak.

I was wrong. It would take another hour, at the the very least. I had really blown it, and I had to cancel out at the last minute. It was frustrating, but more than that, it was embarrassing. As a youth pastor, I occasionally had someone cancel out on me at the last minute, and I know how frustrating it can be. So for me to do it was pretty bad.

As I made my way back to Versailles, I tried to figure out where I made my mistake(s). There were several, actually, but the worst one was the first one. I took the wrong exit, only 10 minutes into the trip. From that point on, I had no idea that I was on a road to nowhere. I was busy alternating between listening to sports talk radio and practicing my talk for the night. But the whole time, I was going in the wrong direction, all because of the mistake I made at the very beginning.

There's a lesson to be learned from this experience for our church plant. The selfish part of me wants to get the ball REALLY rolling, open it to the public, launch sooner rather than later. I'm excited to get started and see where God takes us.

But I also know(and this has been affirmed by others) that this is a CRUCIAL time in the life of the new church. There will never be another time like this in the life of the church, where the foundation is laid and the course is set. The decisions made over the next weeks and months will determine our direction, so it is imperative that we prayerfully seek wisdom, and not move ahead of the pace God has set for us.

That's why I'm so excited about going through "The Present Future", by Reggie McNeal. It puts on paper what many of us have been feeling in our hearts and heads about the future and direction of the church, and our church in particular. I think it will be a great launching pad into the future.

Reading this book...prayerfully considering a name...deciding how/when to launch...taking care of "red tape" that every new church has to deal with...looking for ways to engage the community...all of these are important steps we'll be dealing with over the next several months. It's important to make sure that we're following God's leading and not pushing at our own pace. Because, as I learned last week, mistakes made at the beginning can set you WAY off course over the long haul.

We'll plan on reading Chapter One of the book in advance of Wednesday night, and watch the corresponding clip from the DVD.