It

During my frequent visits to Lifeway Christian Store lately to buy both the Courageous movie and our new NIV Bibles, I came across this book by Craig Groeschel.  I had seen his book Weird at the Disciples of Christ General Assembly last summer, and have it downloaded to read on our Kindle, but I used a coupon to buy It because it looked like exactly what I needed to read about jump-starting our church.  I had felt myself to be in a rut as a leader of late, and needed some fire.

This book has given me that, or recaptured "it" for me, in a way I had sort of forgotten.  I've read far too many Christian books by pastors that want us to adapt to exactly the type of churches they have, usually pastors whose churches are flashy, high-tech and edgy.  No doubt, those churches are experiencing a success of one sort or another, but our little country church at Drennon isn't that sort of place for many reasons.  First and foremost, I don't think the people there want that sort of change, and I don't even think the folks of Henry County want Drennon to completely leave the nineteenth century of its heyday.  Drennon Church and especially the Drennon Springs community surrounding it are as historic as they can possibly be, and we like it that way.  We're a small, tightknit church, and we like it that way.  Growing a little larger in numbers, and much deeper spiritually, would be great, though.

Craig Groeschel uses his book It to encourage us as church leaders to capture, or recapture, "it", meaning the Holy Spirit.  Churches young and old, big and small, high-tech and low-tech can have "it" or just as easily not have "it".  So much of what I've been thinking lately in relation to Drennon while reading this book makes me think that we can definitely grow deeper spiritually, and maybe even add a few to our numbers, if that is what God wants of us.

It's easy to say this kind of statement, but I believe this book might be the most influential one, to me, that I've read since entering the ministry.  It spoke to me, and I hope I can take the ideas it inspired to our church and help us find "it".