I was recently listening to a Seth Godin episode called “Ignore the Sunk Costs” from his Akimbo podcast. In the middle of it he talks about The Dip. It is a tricky segment of life where we have the choice of quitting or sticking it out. In fact he wrote an entire book on the subject (another book I get to consume).

The premise is this. Quitting is sometimes good. Quitting is sometimes bad. That is what makes quitting a difficult decision. It is emotional. There is investment. There is sunk costs that hold us back from quitting something we’ve poured our lives into.

One point he makes is that the best organizations are great quitters. They know the things they need to lay down in order to embrace the things that will make them profitable. He mentions GE spinning off its home appliance division in order to pursue other ventures.

Another point is that sometimes you are in the dip, and you need to NOT QUIT. You need to push through to the other side because you are close to breakthrough. I haven’t read the book yet, but I believe that is the premise of “Don’t Quit in the Dip.”

Here is the deal: It isn’t black and white. It is messy. What we need to do is acknowledge and accept that it’s messy and consider our emotions. Emotions are why we are such crappy decision-makers. In his book “Thinking Fast and Slow,” Kahneman explained thoroughly that the economics of decision-making (black and white) get’s overshadowed all the time by the emotions of decision-making (very very grey).

It would behoove us to take this into account. No, sticking it out and persevering is NOT always the best answer (read “Necessary Endings“). And at the same time, we too often quite right before the breakthrough.

The answer to this conundrum is complex. All of the books mentioned help us navigate the maze of decisions with helpful tools. The first step, however, is to recognize the complexity of the dip, embrace it, and not make a knee-jerk decision.

We live in a world that is obsessed with the big splash. As a church planter, I am keenly aware that churches have succeeded in making a big splash and growing quickly.

I don’t know if that will happen for us. Would it be nice? Yes. But I wouldn’t want to do it if we were poor at shepherding the people God gave us.

Ray Ortlund is the founding pastor of Emmanuel Nashville. It took that church 2 years to see 150 in attendance. That isn’t explosive. But it is faithful. Now they reach hundreds in the area, are seen as a very influential in the region, and Ray Ortlund is seen as a father-figure to many church planters.

The lesson is do what God called you to do. Work at it little by little. And let God work on His timetable.

Social media is great. It allows people to connect and debate and spread their opinions.

Social media is awful. It allows people to seclude and argue and spread their opinions.

The thing I have realized is I am much more healthier mentally if I’m not digesting people that make me angry. The downside of that is that I never get to interact with people who think differently than me. That is a problem.

This problem lies in the fact that social media allows people to lob their opinions without repercussions. Here is my thesis: Everyone has an opinion. But when they aren’t held accountable for their opinions, they continue to spew bad opinions.

If you got get advice from someone, and they say “Go buy a new truck with a $900 payment!” You do this, and realize it was a mistake. You probably won’t go back to the person with the bad advice. Not so with the “online voices.” We keep going back to them. Why?

I see one guy who is a sports announcer on social media. He is always wrong – confidently. He’s like a broken clock though – right twice a day. His audience continues to grow, though. Why? Because he is never held accountable for the views he says that are wrong. He is rewarded for his outlandishness. It’s like watching a train-wreck – you can’t turn away and, in turn, they get paid for the clicks.

Social media won’t improve until we stop giving people an audience that are continually wrong. So what they are right twice a year? Why give them a voice into our psyche when they are wrong so often?

I said this to someone today, “In today’s society, we have too many couch PhDs.” What I mean by that is the internet and social media give too many people the platform to speak as an authority without the credentials or training of an authority.

Allow people who have wisdom to challenge your thinking. Discard the voices that are just loud for the sake of being loud.

¶ When God asked Jennifer and I to do this, I thought I was crazy… I thought God was crazy. But He isn’t, and neither am I.

Last week over our dining room table, Jackie, someone we met over breakfast at a local diner, told us, with tears in her eyes, “I prayed you here.”

That blew my mind. That God would use us and Alinea Church, to answer this person’s prayer. She prayed for a church home. She prayed for a place her husband and four kids could get involved. She prayed for authentic community. She prayed for a place where she could understand her faith better and how she was to live it out. Now we are here!

June is a big month for us. We begin the hard work of training our team for launch Sunday (August 8^th). We finalize a lot of our systems we’ll need to disciple and care for people well. We also begin the big task of purchasing everything that we’ll need – and what a big task that is!!

There are 3 ways you can help us and join us in this mission:

Pray. We know that God is in this and we pray that God will send us workers for the harvest! We pray for a fresh outpouring of His Spirit on our church. We also pray for God’s wisdom and provision!

Share. Do you know someone in Middle Tennessee that needs a good home church? Let them know about us! We would love to welcome them with open arms!

Give. I am unashamed, now, to ask people to give to this. Why? Because I know God is behind it and he’ll use people just like you to fund it. We haven’t launched yet. It will take a lot of people who will never call this place home getting behind this financially. June is a critical month as most of our capital expenses will occur over the next 30 days. There are 2 primary ways you can give:

• You can give at www.alineachurch.org/give – Would you consider setting up a recurring gift for the next 12 months? This is a crucial time for us and the church!

• You can also give via VENMO at https://givebutter.com/AlineaLaunch This goes straight to us and is still tax-deductible.

Thank you for your prayers and your support. They mean more than you could ever imagine!

Jeremy

The most profound session I attended at ARC 2016 in Birmingham was on Tuesday April 19th.  Pastor Chris Hodges unveiled some things in scripture that I have never seen before and it was mind blowing.

Pastor Daniel, prior to entering the new year, asked the staff to pray and ask God what one word would be our theme for 2016.  Pastor’s word was ‘Increase.’  There were all sorts of words.  ‘Confidence,’ ‘Freedom,’ ‘Leadership.’  I prayed for a couple of weeks and the word I couldn’t shake from my mind was ‘Fruitfulness.’  I had my word but admittedly had know idea what that meant.  Will my finances be fruitful?  Will my ministry be fruitful?  Will my spiritual life be fruitful?  Will our family be fruitful!?!?!?!?!?!?!?  Who knows!  But I knew I couldn’t do the same things in 2016 that I did in 2015 and experience this new reality.  Things needed to change.  Patterns needed to shift.  Thoughts needed to be wrestled to the ground and washed with God’s truth.  I knew the word, but had no idea how to achieve the word… until Tuesday night.

Pastor Chris Hodges spoke on fruitfulness.  Isn’t that like God?!?  But he came at it from an angle I wouldn’t have imagined.  “God requires intimacy in order for things to multiply,” he said.  “Satan’s goal is to get between  you and others to stop intimacy.”

There was much more to his message, but that was the crux.  And there I had what I thought was the key to unlocking God’s word for me in 2016.  I needed to develop true intimacy with fellow believers – transparency in safe groups of people.  It is only in exposing ourselves to those who care about us and allowing the same in return, that we are able to grow, develop, and become all that God wants us to be.

I think sometimes we feel that we should be adult enough to figure things out on our own.  I think I should be self-sufficient, only needing my relationship with God to make it through the world.  It sounds like a good principle.  “Jesus is all I need.”  But that really isn’t true.  If that was the case, then we does the Holy Spirit give Spiritual Gifts in order to EDIFY (build up) the church.  Why would God see fit to specifically name a Spiritual Gift of EXHORTATION (to speak to, encourage).  Why would God identify everything he created in Genesis 1 as ‘GOOD’ but say that man being alone in Genesis 2 was ‘NOT GOOD.’  Creation was in a ‘NOT GOOD'(Gen 2:18) state until woman came along (COME ON WOMEN!)  It is because God has created us to have relationships.  We need each other.  NEED.  It is how God has created us.  “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24,25.

Before ARC I had an imbalanced equation.  ? + ? = Fruitfulness.  I didn’t realize it at the time.  But after ARC I now see the full picture  RELATIONSHIPS + INTIMACY = FRUITFULNESS.  I have relationships.  Now I know I need to put more of myself into them.  Prior, my posture was to simply relate, holding back the real me, the real struggles, the real self.  But that is what is keeping me from true fruitfulness.  Maybe that is the same for you.  Do you have a safe place where you can be you, ask questions, allow others to speak into your life, and you do the same in return?  We were never meant to live this life alone.  NEVER.