Choice Points

I've been reading a book that makes reference to an obscure computer programming term called "choice points." These are points of change in a decision tree. We might call them forks in the road. This writer applied the term to churches and described them as, "points in time when a formal or informal, and sometimes unconscious, decision is made regarding a value, preference, attitude or response."

There are hundreds of "choice points" we've faced in our lives. Most go unnoticed and are not reflected up. Some are insignificant. Of course, so change everything.

Church planting involves choice points all the time. Perhaps the foremost one is this,

Action vs. Inaction
Someone once said, "Start and the job is half done." That is so true. Thinking, planning, preparing, praying are all necessary things. I'm not advocating doing things poorly or in a rush. But just getting something started is often the key to getting it done.

How many great ideas, plans, hopes and dreams go unbirthed simply because they were never started? Some ideas are so good they are worth starting, even poorly, just to make sure they get started. I embraced this idea from the start. I knew we could have planned for years and never covered all the bases of anew church. I also knew we would have killed the dream and missed the moment God had opened. There are natural "windows" to start a new church. The two obvious ones being the new school year, and the new year. I knew we wouldn't have everything in place by Fall 2007, so we started "Sneak Preview" services. This ended up being a great strategy. We were able to launch fully in January 2008 with most of the snags worked out.

Is there something God wants you to take action on? If so, you are being faced with a choice point. Plan for it. Prepare for it. And definitely pray for it. But most of all, start it! Take action- make the call, sign to contract, set the date, seal the deal and "get-r-done!"