I am so incredibly lucky to be a church planter.  This is what I was made to do.  Connecting with new people, hosting dinners, dreaming about what communities of faith could look like, and creating space for people to grow are all the things that give me such joy and energy.  I feel like I am living in to my God given purpose in this work.

That said new church life is not all sunshine and puppies.  My devotional scripture for the morning was from the book of Malachi in the Old Testament of the Bible.  The passage for the day talks about refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap.  I understand the refining process thanks to Mr. Cross and 11th grade Chemistry.  Fuller’s soap however necessitated a quick Google search.  It turns out a fuller made cloth.  The process involved beating, wetting, and cleaning the cloth to make it consistent and strong.  Some days in church planting it does feel like someone has taken a wet rock to my insides.

While my denomination and leadership are supportive there have been plenty of misunderstandings and times when we were at cross purposes.  The sustainability sword of Damocles dangles over us at every turn.  People have left who were once enthusiastic about this adventure while some who express an interest don’t ever come to events.  I frequently have no idea what I am doing.  In the past 2 1/2 years I have gained 30 pounds, sprouted a plethora of gray hairs, and been sick much more frequently than in the past.  Maybe this is just what nearing 40 looks like, but it falls in line with the warnings I’ve heard from other planters about the toll this work can take on a person.

Before all you lovely people rush in with diet tips and fundraising articles let me say that we are working on dealing with the fall out from the stress of church planting life. My purpose in writing this blog was not to ask anyone to fix this for me, but to be real about the difficulty of what we do and the cost to us.  Let’s just sit in that reality.  That this is hard, rewarding, breathtaking, life giving work which breaks us apart and causes our hearts to soar at the same time.

-Eilidh

Image of Mountain Man Detox soap found on Pinterest taken from Etsy.