Oh, the insanity. Can't sleep because of all the thoughts racing in my head. Maybe I'm a head case . . . maybe God is trying to get through to me.

I continue to battle with some conflicted thoughts and feelings about the best approach to starting a new work. I want badly to give God an opportunity to work things in a powerful new direction within the church I currently serve. I want badly to watch God work in a way that outlasts some of the other attempts at doing a new church within an existing church framework . . . and yet I see how things have happened. The struggles and strain. The egos and conflicted vision. I've been warned strongly by those that know better because they know by experience. And yet I want badly for them to be wrong.

If they are, in fact, wrong, then we may be able to revitalize a ministry and breakthrough some growth barriers that exist (more in peoples' hearts than in the numbers of people who show up). If they are wrong, I will have seen God do what looks like the impossible right now. If they are wrong, God will be glorified.

If they are right, I'm headed for some marginal success followed by enormous frustration. If they are right, I'll have to start from scratch eventually anyway. If they are right, I'll be wishing I had this time back.

I'm willing to abandon anything and everything for the sake of God's will and calling. I'm willing to make a clean break. I'm willing to stay where I've been planted. Ultimately it comes down to my willingness to stick it out for the time it takes for me to hear God fully and obey him completely.

That's all.