Writers Release: The Start of New Relationships

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Let me first and foremost make a point about my previous post about the end of relationships.  I can't fully say that I outright lost a lot of relationships.  I would say that what I lost was a lot of 'relational capital'.  Allow me to explain by sharing a few jokes I used to tell.

The first is that I used to joke with friends that weddings were great because it was the only time that you ranked your friends. Okay! You stand here, you're my number one man! You! You're number two.. etc etc.  I've been 'worst man' in some friends weddings and still considered it quite an honor.  Its a joke, but it does that there are levels of friendship that we naturally tend towards.

I used to joke with another friend about people being 'A-list' and 'B-list' friends.  What seemed to have happened is that folks who I considered 'A-listers' seemed to bump us down to the 'B' or 'C' list.  The problem is that we didn't get the memo, so we treated folks like they were really good friends and they didn't return the honor.  People that were 'B-list' friends bumped us down and 'C-list' folks just walked by like they didn't know us anymore.  Suddenly, there was a relationship gap that had to be overcome.  Its not like we weren't friends anymore, its just that we weren't as close as we used to be.

Even though this has been troubling to my spirit, I have found some refuge in God's word to me.  One of my favorite scriptures is found in Romans 8:28 which says that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."  That piece of scripture has given me a lot of hope over the years.  It doesn't say that everything is going to work out great for us.  It doesn't say that everything is going to go our way.  What is says is that God is going to work good out of all things in our lives.  That meant that even when I was in the midst of trial and turmoil, God was working out a way to turn that bad stuff good.  I know that it wasn't God's will that I lost those relationships, but he can and has made good out of that situation.

If you had talked to me about it in 2007, I could have never imagined leaving my old church.  My plan was to retired there, however God had other plans.  Over the past few years, God has taken us through a process where we left the safety of our old church (under great and wonderful circumstances) to start a new church in Wilmington, Delaware.  Part of that process was a maturation of our faith and a deepening of our love with Jesus and his call for the city, but part of that process was because our ties weren't as strong as they previously had been.  I don't know if we would have been able to make the leap to a whole new city if those old relationships had held us back.  I'm not saying that God caused our old relations to decline, but God giving us the opportunity to move forward to a new city was the 'make good' on that.

So as we've progressed from a small community group in the city to a full fledged church plant, God has brought new relationships to our lives.  We've met amazing new folks in the city and have made some amazing new friends.  I've found myself sharing my life with people I didn't even know existed two years ago.  This has been such a great inspiration to me and a sign that God will make things work together for His good.  I'm loving living in Wilmington and the longer we live here, the more folks we get to know and the bigger our community in the city grows.  Its a good thing!