The Green Light

Well, our assessment is over and Leslie and I are so thankful for the time we were able to spend in Portland. I'll give you a quick run down on the happenings.

Arrived Sunday evening - Nice hotel and they put us in a suite. Very nice.

Monday - We meet for orientation. There are three other couples that are being assessed at the same time we are. Two couples are from Canada (two sisters with their husbands) and a couple from Spokane, WA. We also meet our interigators...errr...assessors as well. They are all church planters who have been through the wars...so to speak. It was cool to see that they included the wives in on the assessment. That was one of the really neat things about the whole process...they truly value the husband/wife team. At the orientation, which included a devotion and prayer and a look at the schedule, George and Dottie, the head of the Christian Evangelical Association and his wife shared their story. It was incredible in that it was truly a story of brokenness and healing as both of them had prior marriages in which their spouse left them for someone else. God has truly brought healing to their lives and families and it was such a good way to kick off the time together because it tore down any shred of feeling like you had to present yourself as "superhuman" - which is easy to feel because you are, in essence, trying to sell yourself to these people in order to win their support.

Following the orientation, we were sent to our rooms where the next four hours were spent with a rotation of people coming through our doors. The assessors were paired up and they came by in hour intervals to talk about key characteristics that are necessary for successful church planting. They asked questions about our past and how we handled different situations in our life. Then the next rotation came by. It was exhausting, but did not feel like an interagation, but more like a friendly interview. This rotation also occurred again on Tuesday morning.

That evening, after a dinner out on the town, we returned to our hotel and shared our stories. Basically, conversion to why I am planting a church. It's a great way to see people's hearts and connect with them. I wish we had done this first.

Tuesday, more rotations in the morning. In the early afternoon, we headed for downtown Portland to hang out together. This is where they observe us interacting with the environment and each other. We took the light rail system they have into downtown Portland and hung out at a mall. They had gotten their wires crossed and had expected to ice skate in the mall, but it was figure skating night, so I was the only one allowed on the ice. Right. After hanging out, we went to a brewery downtown for dinner. It was election night, so the place was pretty electric around the tv monitors. It was downtown Portland so you can guess that there was not much love for W as he moved into the lead. I'm not much of a political activist, but I have taken a great interest in this election on the basis of the polarization of America. I got to talk to some twentysomethings about the election while I was standing in the bar. Can't repeat what they said on a G-rated blog, but suffice it to say, they were unhappy with G.W.

Wednesday had us surrounded by the entire assessment team as they met with each couple seperately. First they gave us one word descriptions of us. I can't remember what they were, but I loved that one of the words they used for Leslie was "Witty." That proves that she was comfortable with them. They also used the word "authentic" for her. The best thing for me about this assessment is the way that they valued Leslie and built her up. It was so cool.

Following the one word descriptions they listed their concerns for us. They were not concerns about us planting a church, but concerns that they felt we needed to take into consideration AS we planted a church. The first, was simply that with our giftings, they felt that we needed to plant a church with a team approach, rather than solo. This was no new news to me as I have been telling them that from the start. I don't want to do a solo plant. Second, they said that going from a "super-mall" church to a church where we were starting from scratch was going to be a major culture shock for us. Again, nothing we were not aware of. Third, they said that we needed to be aware of the demands of starting a plant and how that would effect our family of seven. 90% of the energy require to launch a rocket comes at lift-off. Good words to consider, but we have counted the cost. Finally, they loved my passion and said it will translate even better as we get more details put into place.

They then gave us the green light. We are officially planting a church with the Christian Evangelistic Association.