A few days before “the day” arrived, I sat in my office and cried. We were about to do a great thing, a “gospel thing,” and send away about 30 of our members and all their kids to plant a new work on the other side of the city. Our launch Sunday was days away and I had decided to preach on John 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
The death I saw before my eyes was manifold. People I really loved were really leaving: an elder, some deacons, several ministry leaders, family members, and good friends. For the foreseeable future, they would have that rush of excitement of starting something new. The following Sunday, we would be left understaffed with a smaller budget and a whole lot of lonely. More than that, we would never be the same. The old version of us was gone.
Don’t get me wrong, I was all for the plan. The whole church was. But there was a dark cloud on the horizon that Thursday afternoon.
John 12:25 Whoever loves his
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