When a kid jumps in the pool for the first time, her heart wonders if there will be someone to help if she need it. When you start a church for the first time, your heart is every bit as anxious.

It’s a small taste of the miraculous when you see the flood of willing friends who take on the work of children’s ministry, accounting, hospitality, check-in, room set-up, publicity, and everything else that needs doing, and they do it not for a salary, but for a cause. People are giving sacrificially of their time, their finances, and their prayers, more than I would have the courage to ask them to do. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I get to watch an incredible team pull together to make something happen that I could not have dreamed of on my own.

There’s an African proverb that says, “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.” Given that I’m now racing to catch up to where I would be if I had six months to plan, I don’t have the luxury of going fast. But I do have the pleasure of the promise of going far, not because of anything that I do on my own, but because I'm following Jesus' call, and because I have good friends.

-jm