Attracting a Crowd To Monthly Services- Part 4
(Click here for Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)

“Knocking On Heaven’s Door”
by Andy Wood, Guest Blogger

It’s possible to make all of right strategic moves and not have the kind of launch for your church that God desires. We’ve got to remind ourselves constantly that kingdom leadership is a spiritual endeavor. We are helpless without the Supernatural blessing of God on our church.

When we moved to the Silicon Valley during our Pre-Launch phase I was consistently spending close to one hour each day interceding, begging God to help us get this church off the ground. I made this a top priority in my calendar; I scheduled it in and asked our team and my wife to hold me accountable.

There are so many “only God” stories along the way that came out of my personal prayer life.

As we were raising support, every day I asked God for a very large specific amount of money for our first year of the church. When I looked at our income statement after twelve months it was close to double what I had prayed for!

Before we approached the school where we currently meet, our whole team fasted and prayed for three days asking God to move in the heart of the principle. In addition, we prayed for specific numbers of people for both our Monthly Services and our Launch Team.

God exceeded expectations on those prayers as well.

We’ve also continued to see many people come to faith as we kept begging God for their salvation. Prayer really does change things.

Many leaders have a hard time bringing together the strategic and the spiritual. At South Bay Church we often use the illustration of a lattice and a vine. Our systems and strategies work like a lattice on which the church grows.

Strategic and spiritual is not an “either/or” it is a “both/and” issue.

Your diligence and hard work is evidence of your faith in God’s ability to launch the church! If I didn’t believe God was going to get this church off the ground I wouldn’t have moved my family across the country and staked the future of my life on this vision.

So, be creative and model the way. We did prayer walks once a week with our team, we created Google calendars asking people to pray in 30 minute time slots for 48 hours leading up to our Monthly Services, we sent out short email blasts to all of our partners about once a week and we stayed on our knees as a team.

The spiritual side of leadership requires us to constantly seek the hand of God on our lives and our churches. A healthy church launch comes out of your personal times of prayer and communion with God. He is the author of our faith. He is able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond anything you can ask or imagine. Now, go, get on your knees and beg Him to move in your community.

Remember, God can accomplish more with one spoken word than you can build in one thousand years!

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