“Please Mommy! I promise I won’t get sick. I just want a couple.”
My three-year-old daughter peered at me with longing eyes as she gripped the box of cookies in her hand. We had just gotten home from a birthday party where she indulged in enough sugary treats to put her father to shame (and that’s difficult to do).
At that moment, I knew that this was going to end badly for her if I allowed it. I knew that there would come the point of no return when her stomach would begin to reject the copious amounts of unhealthy food, and regret would eventually set in. I knew because I had been there myself. Experience had allowed me to see what my daughter was blinded to: too much sugar can eventually lead to an awful tummy ache.
Parenting is filled with these types of conversations. Having a few more years of living under my belt has allowed me to see things that my daughter, with her limited experience, is still figuring out.
In the same way my children need me to help them see the world through my eyes of experience, church planters need those who have gone before them to do the same.
Veteran church planters play a vital role in the pioneering effort of church planting because they have trodden the same paths, worked with similar soil, and waged war against the same enemy. Their years of pioneering work have allowed them to see through the eyes of experience what the new church planter cannot. So when my husband and I began the process of starting a new gospel work in our community, we knew we needed the involvement of men and women like this.
There are three areas that veteran church planters know to explore in a pioneer church planter: the hands, the head, and the heart.
This article was previously posted at Acts 29 West. To read the full article click here.
![There are a lot of voices talking right now:
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Ever-changing statistics shared by anxious newscasters;
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Floods of free resources, curriculums, and activities we can and “should” do from home so we #dontwasteyourquarantine;
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Exhausted cries from the newly school-at-home parent, grief-filled laments from the lonely and untouched, overwhelming sighs from the recently unemployed.
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And louder than all of those voices is my own—sometimes a little anxious, at times battling overwhelm, and pretty much always exhausted.
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Something I’m rehearsing to myself right now: I will never regret just doing the next right thing with dependent faith and desperate prayers in this quarantine.
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Regardless of your quarantine remember, what the Lord speaks to you in the midst of this:
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“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5).
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“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).
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“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:21–24).
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To put it more eloquently than I ever could, John Piper reminded me this morning:
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“My voice is grass. God’s voice is granite. “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Pet. 1:24–25). Jesus said that God’s words in Scripture “cannot be broken” (John 10:35). What God says is “true, and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:9). His word is, therefore, a firm foundation for life. “You have founded [your testimonies] forever” (Ps. 119:152). Listening to God, and believing him, is like building your house on a rock, not on sand (Matt. 7:24).”
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So this is me, doing this next right thing: wrangling a squirmy baby into yet another bath and blasting worship music just to give him something to do. 🤷🏻♀️ My kids are going to be so squeaky clean by the end of this quarantine.](http://homegoing.blog/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
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