Free Fall

3 comments | Oct 26, 03:50 PM | Berkeley-Church-Planting-Project | by Earl Creps

Leaving the conference room at the end of our last church plant screening interview, I felt like a parachutist taking that first big stride out the airplane door. Up until that moment, my resignation from our Seminary and the sale of our house had still seemed sort of hypothetical. But this committee’s affirmative vote completed a long approval process that finally made our transition into church planting concrete.

In our system, we raise personal and project budgets for as long as it takes before the plant actually begins. In other words, we are self employed with a capital “S,” a radical departure from the institutional cocoon of higher education…

It feels like free fall. One step and you’re hurtling downward through empty space with nothing tangible to grasp for support. But there are some things that happen during the free fall of risk-taking that weren’t as likely when we were just passengers on the plane:

1. When I look down, the view is great: Now I understand why skydivers do what they do. After that long first step it takes a moment to gain the courage to open your eyes. But once you do, the world looks completely new, taking on a perspective that is just not available from the plane. Could this be something like the God’s eye view? For me, free fall has made it possible to see Berkeley (the location of our plant) as part of a network of smaller post-Christian cities dominated by “cultural creatives” who invent the future the rest of us will live. An effective ministry in Berkeley might help us learn how to reach these enclaves and even produce some of the people to do it.

2. When I look around, the company is grand: At first free fall felt very lonely, as if we were flying straight down by ourselves. However, looking downward eventually yields to looking around and the realization that we are actually doing something like formation skydiving. Our planting journey has connected us to some of the most amazing people, including other planters like Trinity Jordan in Layton, Utah, Curt and Kelly Harlow of West Coast Chi Alpha, and Craig and Dana Mathison, global missionaries with the AoG. We knew most of these folks before, but nothing bonds like skydiving together. They are our mentors, our friends, and our family.

3. When I look up, I see God’s face in a new way: It’s not like the movies; there are limits to what the other skydivers can do for you. In the silence, as the air rips past your face, you can hear things that were drowned out by background noise when riding as a passenger. Our Church Planting Director, Steve Pike, told me once that God may have sent him to plant just to teach him to pray. I thought I knew what he meant, but now I am learning it in a new way. Just being with God is the best thing in life, and the heart of Christian ministry is a person in love with God in a way others would notice and want to emulate.

With one big step transition becomes a lifestyle and a state of mind, rather than an event. There are seasons for riding in the plane (that’s good for in its own way) and seasons for jumping out.

If we gave more attention to the benefits of free fall, would more of us would jump?