Where is it?

Gotta' (gently) weigh in here.

Got shook up yesterday by a blog post I found via a friendly acquaintance of mine who's a fellow church planter. You can read the post HERE.

See?

Troubling.

Even if you've never planted a church you've surely started something that's failed.

The challenge with a church plant failing is that it's an extremely public failure and it's a failure that has impact in many (many) lives.

Publicly, you feel like an idiot and know that all your church planting peers are shaking their heads, thanking God it wasn't them, and some of them are thinking (if not saying) that you probably never 'had what it took' in the first place.

Terrifying.

Personally, you feel like an idiot for all the time, money, effort and heart people have expended to help you get something started that you couldn't see through to success.

You are a failure.

You suck.

That's how you're feeling.

Then the triage starts. "How can we fix this? What do we need to do to make the hurt go away? How can we save our reputation? What about that paycheck, where's the next one coming from? Do you think they HATE me? What is 'so-and-so' saying about me?"

Terrible.

Then the blog gets written, taking a look back, trying to figure out where it started to go wrong. Other church planters get on it, start passing it around, like pictures of a car wreck. Pretty soon everybody knows. "Hey aren't you that guy who failed in __________?"

Yeah, that's me.

Wanna' give me a job? I swear I won't fail this time. I've learned my lesson.

Really?

How do you know, I mean really know?

And in the midst of all the advice blog posts swirling around out there ("Do this, make sure you don't do that...") I find a gaping hole.

Nobody's talking about The Spirit.

Nobody's asking if their worship was FULL OF THE SPIRIT, if their preaching was fit to REND THE HEAVENS so soaked in the Ghost it was. If they prayed for the sick, the broken-hearted and hemmed-in on a regular basis and saw the Mighty Lord answer those prayers by times.

Nobody's talking about CHARISMA! The real kind, not your personal magnetism, but the MAGNETIC, ENERGETIC, FRENETIC, CACOPHONIC, Presence of the Most High God at work in your work.

Seems to me if you got the Ghost you're going to be fine. If you don't you're dead, no matter how hip, or focused, or visionary, or well-managed, funded, or planned you are.

"But believers are all filled with the Holy Spirit upon conversion..."

Yeah, yeah.

In-dwelled by the Spirit.

I'm talking about the ANOINTING, IN-FILLING, BAPTISING, GIFTING, MANIFEST Presence of the Holy Spirit at work in the midst of His people for the Father's glory, His people's salvation and joy, and the good of all people.

Where is it?

WHERE'S THE FREAKIN' GHOST IN YOUR WORK, SON?

T