Ninety Days (A Fictional Account of a Future Reality)

September 19, 2011

It was a particularly pleasant December evening in Georgia when a group of about two-hundred people gathered together in a grassy field for a celebration of sorts.  Among the two-hundred or so people gathered together, around fifty or sixty are vibrant and happy kids jumping on inflatables and enjoying treats beneath a canopy of decorative tents.  The atmosphere feels something like a group of football fans tailgating on game day, except the camaraderie is deeper than that.  There’s is definitely something in the air.  It’s December 18th, so Christmas is near and the kids are bursting with excitement, but there’s more to this story than meets the eye…

Within a three mile radius of this over-sized lawn party, thousands of shoppers are perusing stores in search of the perfect Christmas gift and restaurants are brimming with friends and families celebrating the Christmas Season over dinner.  Many of the shoppers haven’t really paused to think too much about Christmas, or what it might mean to them personally.   The holiday revelry is in full swing.  The perspective from the grassy field becomes interesting as evening begins to set-in.  There’s a glow on the horizon from the city lights, and the grassy field seems like a calm reprieve situated at the center of the commotion swirling around it.  It’s almost like an island comfortably enveloped in the eye of a perpetually stationary storm.

Within the Larger Group of people at this big lawn party, there are smaller groups of people huddled together sipping hot beverages and engaging in rich conversation about the everyday stuff of life.  There’s something magnetic and authentic about their attentiveness to one another.  There seems to be no social facade.  The vibe is that of old friends who are reminiscing.   There’s some depth to this community of people, anyone could see that.

A family taking the back way to Target on Watson Blvd noticed the festivities and decided stop and check it out. A man wearing a green t-shirt on the periphery of the celebration observes this family and heads out to greet them.  The lady swished past chasing after her kids as they explode from the car making a b-line to the nearest inflatable.  The man, however, stops to chat with this greeter in the green t-shirt. “Are y’all having some sort of Christmas Party, the man inquired.”  “Just some friends getting together to watch the lighting of that tree on top of that building over there, but y’all are welcome to join us”, replied the guy in the green t-shirt guy.  “Forgive me for saying so”, replied the man, “but isn’t this a lot of hoopla just fire up that Christmas Tree.”   “Well, that’s actually a pretty good story,” the man in the green t-shirt responded.

“Those people are my best friends, and we’re here to celebrate, not just the lighting of that tree, but something that we have been working on together.”  “What’s that, the man asked?”  “Well, just a few years ago, my family didn’t even know any of these people.  Not one of them.  We had arrived at one of those defining crossroads in life about three years ago, and we wound up choosing a path here to Warner Robins, GA.  We were pretty nervous, but we were inspired to move here and become a part of something that we really felt like God was orchestrating in this community.” “So, is this a church deal?” the man inquired.  “Yeah,” said the man in the green shirt, “it’s a church deal.”  “I’m not much of church guy myself,” the man responded.  “I hear ya, I’m not much a church guy either, the man in the green shirt said.”  “So, what do you do?”, the man asked the guy in the green t-shirt. “Well, I’m the Lead Pastor of this church.”  (Pause) “Huh”, you don’t look like a Pastor.”, said the man.  “Excellent”, the guy in the green shirt replied.” “That’s excellent….”

“My family moved here to be Church Planters.  Church Planting was a super hard gig in the beginning, but at some point, I realized that my faith wasn’t as big as I thought it was.   I thought that God needed me to do something awesome, but He didn’t.  He just invited me take part in something that He already had planned.  He turned the tables on me, and blessed my family with something priceless, something unexpected, something he knew that we needed; incredible friends.  Friends whose lives converged with ours in monumental ways.  Friends that offered us insights and inspiration at all the right moments.  Most would attribute our new friends to accidental randomness, but I call it extraordinary providence.  Because without them, I wouldn’t be standing here now talking to you about the church that we started together in Warner Robins, GA called Longleaf.”

“Can I ask you a stupid question?” Sure, the green t-shirt guy responded.  “So, why are all of you standing around in this grassy field having a party?”  You see that building? “Um, yeah, I see that building.” We’re in the process of making it our new home.  It seats more than double the number of adults and accommodates more than double the number of kids than the space that we’ve been meeting in over the past year or so.  We’re pretty fired up about it.  We’re not quite done renovating it, but we’re going to open it up tonight for a walk-thru, then gather together for some Christmas music after we light the tree.  We punched the accelerator to the floor on relocating to this building on September 18th, which was exactly 90 days ago, and together we are opening the doors on a new chapter for our church”

One more question for you, the man said…. “Is that Justin Bieber and his little brother over there racing through the inflatables?” “No, that’s just Ben and John Harmon, but they are huge in the greater Bonaire/Kathleen area.”

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