Well deja vu! I didn’t realize it was to be a trip down memory lane, but this last weekend in McKinney, Texas (well outside of ‘er about eight mile) was just exactly that. I led a church-wide ReKindle weekend at Dunn Memorial Baptist Church, and you cannot possibly imagine the similarities I found there with what I found back in 1990 as the new pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church just outside Waco.
Surely I’ve passed it, I said to myself as I drove farther and farther into a rare, still-untapped reach of Collin County north of Dallas. I laughed out loud when I heard those words come out of my mouth, recalling the numerous testimonies of church visitors who “finally found” Harris Creek on their second or third Sunday’s attempt. Then as now, I like to think the difference can be worth the distance.
A little blue room—If you’re a fan of or familiar with Harris Creek, you know that one of its terms of endearment was the “Little Red Room,” a reference to its original sanctuary that contained furnishings in various shades of red (nine such shades, to be exact). DMBC in McKinney had chosen variations of blue, instead, but the rest was the same—blonde brick façade in the midst of farm land, a curious assortment of rooms down a narrow hall, and a panel-walled sanctuary with sleeping, uh, seating capacity for about 120 (counting the overflow “balcony” chairs beyond the back aisle).
Small doesn’t mean second-rate. In over fourteen years at Harris Creek, I don’t remember ever hearing, “We’ve never done it that way before,” but I did hear, at least early on, things like, “We’re not a big enough church to try that.” Because I had trod the current path of my new friends in Collin County, I was able to offer this encouragement—it’s not about the size of the church but about the size of the church’s God.
Playing it safe is not the solution for churches like HCBC and DMBC to secure their future. Fact is, God already has enough of His churches doing that. He needs more churches willing to take risks of dependency on His power. I often asked the church in Waco the question I asked the church in McKinney this weekend, the same question I now pose to you—when was the last time you allowed God to lead you into a situation that if He didn’t come through, both you and He were going to look pretty bad? Maybe it’s time to live a little…and lean. ReFresh!