If You Never Try, You’ll Never Know

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

John Wimber, the founder of the Association of Vineyard Churches, once said, “Faith is spelled R.I.S.K.”

When I was in my twenties God gave me a vision for a different type of church; a church that was contemporary, one that fostered authentic community, and one that transformed its community into a better place. For seven years I told God why I couldn’t do that. I told him I didn’t know enough, I didn’t have the credentials I needed for that to be a possibility, and I couldn’t afford to take the financial risk with my young family. God was calling me, but I wasn’t following.

I was suffering from a serious lack of faith.

If you were to ask me at the time, I would have said it was a lack of faith in myself. In reality it was a much larger issue than that it was a lack of faith in God. I didn’t believe God was powerful enough to work around my inadequacies. So I told God no, and I experienced a miserable seven years of running from the call of God on my life.

However there came a time shortly after turning 31 that I surrendered to the call and I took the risk. God empowered me to plant a church of over 500 people that has planted six churches out of it in less than a decade that if you were to total them up are running between 1100-1200 people. Because our church reaches so many college students we literally turn over a fifth or sixth of our congregation every year as those students graduate, which means that we have sent out about as many leaders as the size of our church over the last decade. We’ve fed the poor, brought relief to areas of the U.S. that have experienced disaster, waded into the Human Trafficking issue, brought clean water to an area of Uganda, housed the homeless, sent the first medical missions team to the Tepajan Indians, helped establish missions in India and Mexico, and the list could go on. Literally, thousands upon thousands of people’s lives have been touched and changed by the Vineyard Chattanooga.

That all began because a small group of people decided to take a risk. God called, we took a risk, and thousand’s of lives have been changed. Now that’s a little simplistic because there was great sacrifice involved, but I can tell you every sacrifice I’ve had to make so far has been worth it. God has backed up his end and then some. So my question to you is what vision has God placed on your heart? Where is he asking you to step out and take a risk?

What if you fail you may ask, O.K. what if you do? Is it the end of the world? I’ve got a better question, “What if God uses you?” What if he takes that vision he’s placed on your heart and breathes life to it, and it takes off. What could happen because of it? How many lives could be changed? How many people could experience hope? You can sit there and do nothing, you can risk nothing, and never experience the power of really being used or you can step out, risk, and see what God does. You know what the difference between people who see God do incredible things and people who don’t is? The difference is risk. Faith can’t be rewarded where faith is not found. Take a risk.