When my wife Sharon and I planted our church we broke so much of what would be regarded as conventional wisdom. There was much that we lacked.

We had no outside financial support. We didn’t have a large core team. There were only four of us. We didn’t have much by way of ministry experience. Whilst we had a denomination behind us, we didn’t have a mother/sending church.

But there were some things that we did have.

We had some amazing mentors who believed in us. They continually brought encouragement mixed with wisdom. And they prayed for us. We would have been lost without them.

We also had marketplace honed skills that we could bring to the table. In retrospect it caused us to sense how God had been preparing us without us realizing.

More than anything else we had a deep sense of conviction that God was calling us to plant a church for people who had never experienced a life changing faith in Jesus and the warmth and love of authentic Christian community.

And so against all odds we planted a church; going against conventional wisdom in a way that I would never advise another young couple to do. 

Can I explain how Sharon and I can still be in the church 31 years later, having handed over senior leadership of the church last year? I can only put it down to the God factor.

God called us, and He went with us. We needed common sense and conventional wisdom, but that isn’t the end of the story. There had to be more.There had to be the God factor. Where was logic and wisdom when Noah decided to build the Ark, or Moses led the people to the Red Sea with an army at his back and the sea to the front? Or when Peter decided to take Jesus at His word and step out of the boat to walk on water?

A responsible church board would have almost certainly said “no” in each of these cases. Unless that is, that the board members had the conviction that God was in it. This is the kind of personal conviction that comes from intimacy with Jesus, time in His presence and recognising his voice. I’m not talking about the kind of conviction that comes from a hyped up environment or from persuasion, but from being in that quiet, still place of hearing the Masters voice, sensing his leading and being impregnated with conviction. It’s only then that the God Factor can be unleashed to work alongside the wisdom He gives us.

My background before planting a church was as an accountant and in business. I had been trained in the logic of a financial and business model that leads to a healthy bottom line and reasoned logic that something will succeed. But there are two factors I have learnt help to make room for the God Factor.

One of these is that I realised many years ago that a proposal may make sense, but if my heart wasn’t in it, I wouldn’t go through with it. Unless my heart was in it, energy and motivation wouldn’t be unleashed. But then I also came to realise that perhaps my heart was like a thermometer indicating the God Factor; was God in this? Was this what He was asking me to do?

The other important learning was that there was often a battle between faith and facts. Nowhere was this battle more clearly seen than in the financial statements and bank account balance. We sensed, no we more than sensed.; we developed a conviction that God was calling us to build a special kind of building to reach our community. The only problem was that it seemed financially and practically impossible. But the sense of conviction was so strong that we felt we would have been disobedient if we didn’t do as we felt God was directing. 

We felt like we were like the Israelites standing on the banks of the flooded Jordan River seeing how crossing it was impossible, until that first step was taken. We heeded the call to be strong and courageous and that God was leading us into the land he had prepared for us, impossible as it seemed.

We were also mindful of how this was take 2 for the Israelites. Forty years earlier they had been at the river but failed to cross because as Deuteronomy 1:32 tells us, they didn’t trust the Lord. And so without a vision they perished, wandering aimlessly in the wilderness until they all died. We didn’t want that for the church and knew that before us was a faith journey.

So we did cross that ‘river’ and built the Tailrace Centre, home of Tailrace Community Church. Facts would have said “we can’t”. Faith said “we must”. And so with God’s grace, we did. There’s not the space here to tell the story of how He provided, but He did. 

There have been many times since when the bank account has said “we can’t”. Faith has said “we must”. And so with God’s grace, we have. 

I have learnt time and again that times of struggle drive us deeper into God’s presence and allowed us to see the God Factor doing the immeasurably more. 

Please understand that I’m not suggesting that we throw out wisdom, common sense, caution, good stewardship and governance. They are absolutely essential. But we must also make room for the God Factor if we are to see church planting ignited across our nation.

Part of me still resonates with Peter. If we want to walk on water, we need to step out of the boat and put our trust in Jesus as we respond to His call. Yes we must bring the wisdom that we have and that the Holy Spirit gives us, and w must seek wisdom and discernment form trusted others. We must weigh the risks. But when we are certain that we are responding to His call, we too must respond.