It's on!!!!!

There is part of church planting which I think is really not spread enough.  Let me first say that church planting is about reaching lost people.  We are not leaving everything in Los Alamos, all our family, and friends, to preach the Gospel to saved people.  Planting Churches is about shining the light of Jesus to the dark places in the world.  What I want to warn and encourage other church planters, and really everyone who has the desire to spread the Gospel, is that Satan does not just retreat when we turn out into the dark places that are his kingdom.

Jesus did not tell us that taking enemy territory would be easy.  Or that we would be protected.  He told His disciples they would die in this endeavor, and they did.  When you yourself decide that the way things are, are not the way that things have to be, you have just placed a target on your back, and your family's backs.  Satan does not play fair.  He hates your children, as much as he hates you, and the vision God has for the church.

When my family got home from "Fit for the Field" we expected to have some spiritual attacks.  But, what happened, we never expected, or were prepared for.  Our children were terrified by demonic presences in their room.  They would wake up in the middle of the night terrified at something in their room.  My wife on several occasions felt demonic presences in our bedroom.  If you have never experienced casting out demons and that they are real, read the gospels.  Jesus and His disciples cast out demons, and demons are still at work in the world today.

What I failed to recognize was the demons sent to me.  To blind me to what I was going through, and let me see what my family is going through.  Let me say this, if you have not nailed down your call, as a command from God, you will abandon it.  If it is not sin to abandon your call, you will abandon your call.  You will see all the things that the enemy is doing, and shrink back.  Open your eyes to see the forest, and not just the trees. The way I have been attacked, is very different from the way the demons attacked my family.  My focus on their well being and their attacks, blinded me to what was happening in my own spiritual life.  I had become so obsessed with church planting, and all the things that go into planning it, I was doing everything on my own strength.  I knew that hard work needed to be done, in so many areas, I ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off, doing a little in each area, but getting nothing accomplished.

I was so blinded that God used my wife to both rebuke me, and lead me back to a submitted relationship to Jesus.  Men, your wives are invaluable in this journey you are about to undertake.  Your wives will pray for you like no one else will.  Learn to lean on their prayers.  To cherish their prayers.  In turn, realize that they need your prayers as much as you need theirs.  Wives need comfort, leading and relationship, to assure them, that you will be their husband, before you are the pastor of a new church.  If you allow your relationship with your wife and family to fall apart, the church will fall apart.

So why do this?  Why subject yourself to all of this?  Why put targets on your back, and your family's back.  I think there are several reasons.  First, God built into you a radical heart to do radical things.  Church planters are those kind of people that stand at the foot of Everest and say, "I need to climb that."  Church planters, and those that shine the light of Jesus in new and dark places, take the spiritual risks and adrenaline rushes that others just cannot comprehend.  Why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane, or jump off that cliff with only a parachute.  They just don't understand.  Second, it is a sin to disobey God.  If you have been called by God to go, you have to go.  He knows your situation.  He knows your needs.  If you have young children, God already knows that, He still wants you to go.  If you have financial burdens, God knows, and will provide a way to fulfill them.  Don't use those things as an excuse.  Last, and of utmost importance, God wants to do something in you, more than He wants to do something through you.  He could call more qualified, more submitted, more experienced people, but He called you.  Not because you are so great, but because He is.  Nothing will ruin your ministry faster than believing your own hype.  If you start to think that you are so great, sprint into repentance and submission.  Read Psalm 51, several times, and realize the heart that you need to have.  The person that you are, is not the person you will be, when God turns your world upside down.

This catches most people up to date with where we are.  I will continue writing as things progress, and hope to be writing to all from Washington soon.

In Him,

Pastor Cam