Spring has sprung

I know that spring hasn't actually sprung in Montana, but for almost two weeks our average high temp. has been around 55 or so. Save a few shady spots the snow is completely gone from my yard and I contemplated running outside this morning. I decided against it. :)

There is a sense of excitement around the church and life here in Billings. I was reading Jonah this morning and I certainly understood his situation. Not that God told me to come to Billings to save this city, but I understood his reluctance to follow God. I get that. Following God is a scary thing where I take 2 steps forward and occasion I take 2 steps back. Though we continue to move forward.

So the deep thought today, keep moving forward.

The IRS...

...gets a bad rap. On several occasions I have called and quickly received advice and guidance on issues relating to the church and its non-profit status. Once you find the correct form or instructions for a form(all of which are posted on-line to look at or download) it is all pretty easy. I for one don't mind saying, I am impressed with the IRS.

Acting like a church

One of the strange things about planting a church is so many things that are normal to church life don't take place in the early days of church planting. No worship, few gatherings and the gatherings you have aren't overtly Churchy...

However, today our little church got the opportunity to take 50% of the money tithed to us (not designated money) just the money given as a tithe. Anyway, we took 50% and gave it away to our missional partnerships. It was cool! I wrote a check to CBF national, a missionary couple, a local youth organization here in Billings, as well as tucked a bit away for our future Montana Church Plants for use in helping to start new Montana churches. These gifts were largely symbolic, we only have a couple of people tithing to our church at this point. However, it was awesome to send those checks out today. 

Over time we will fine tune our missional partnerships, i.e. meaning we'll allow our congregation to have more say in where the money goes locally, etc...however, for now we stuck with our original partner CBF and our goal of planting more churches in Montana. We also fulfilled a goal of connecting personally with a single missionary couple as well as helping the young people of Billings. May God bless these gifts given in His name!