It Is Finished ... Or Is It?

StillWaters is no more. I am still pretty numb I suppose. It hasn't really hit me yet. I think that it will be a whole lot more real to me this Sunday morning.

I guess that there are some that are rejoicing over the demise of our church today. What a foolish thing to do if they are. Somehow a church of a mere 20 members had enemies - and not just the spiritual kind. What a queer little town I live in.

But that is now water under the bridge. I suppose that if martyrs' blood is the seed of the church, then even a church's demise must count for something - especially if it didn't end by the desire of its congregants. Now begins the long, hard slog to figure out what to do next.

This whole process has revealed some real warriors, though. I have been surprised by the folks that have risen up and wanted to fight on. I had one brother who sent me an email with William Wallace's "What Would You Give" speech from the movie Braveheart. It stirred up the warrior in me too. I am not quitting - not yet, anyway. I cannot.

Today I spent the better part of 8 hours working through pictures I had taken of my home town. It made me remember that this is a great town and reaffirmed my conviction I am just not willing to concede it to the enemy's hand. I'll write more about this as I have direction.

But in the meantime, I will return to StillWaters' last service under that banner:

It was a good service and the band sounded the best that it had in a while - even with a 12 song set. We had one of the guys from the band Baumer sitting in with us on acoustic guitar. Chad Rochester did a great job and we really appreciate his desire to play with our band. (Check out the band's MySpace page.)

I was personally amazed that my hand didn't fall off. I probably played for over 2 hours yesterday but I suffered no ill effects. Well, my carpal flexors DID start trying to cramp at the end of our rehearsal, but by stretching and massaging them I was able to make it through. (I think that there was probably some Divine intervention too.) I think that the thing that I most appreciated about the worship time yesterday was that I had no trouble finding people in the congregation who were actually worshiping. Not a bad way to go out.

There were quite a few guests in attendance - not quite as big as our grand opening, but a nice turn out nonetheless. Several of Cameron's friends came up to support him. (I was glad to see them too!) Cameron delivered a very encouraging message about how the church is sometimes scattered to achieve God's purposes. Fair enough. I don't like it, but when you have lemons...

I have no idea what will happen - there are still many hurdles - but I am sure that God will help us to figure out what is next.