I remember starting at a new school when I was a kid. I did it several times growing up as my family moved. The first day had the feeling of a New Year's Resolution. It was a chance to reinvent the experience of school, to make it something more fun or more broad than the previous school had been.

My kids started school yesterday. They marched off excitedly in the morning to old friends and familiar school campuses, but the excitement lay in the novelty. My daughter, who is older, is thinking about how she will shape herself this year, newly involved in student leadership. My son, I'm guessing, is a little more curious about what options will be presented to him. But both of them were drawn to the chance to start something new.

Starting a church is much the same way. If you were there last weekend, you know the electric feeling of being a part of a movement. If you're used to sitting in church, a new church feels like it suddenly put you on your feet. There are things to do, spaces to create, processes to establish, and new relationships to build. Everything is a curiosity. Everything makes you ask, "Why do we do it that way?" You feel like you are creating DNA more than inheriting it. Plus it holds the promise of watching Jesus bring people to new life.

In nature, things climb out of cocoons, shed their skins, and hatch. In church, we plant new churches. And being there from the beginning is an experience like I've never had. It's the first day of school again, walking in and saying, "Imagine what this year could be!"

- pastor jim