I'm being serious. I think that getting married, changing places of employment, and moving to new cities all FELT like risks at the time, but in reality that we're all pretty safe bets. It's not that much of a risk to move to a new area when there is a "guaranteed" salary in an established setting. It's also not that much of a risk to get married when you love someone and enjoy being around them.

When we started Great Lakes Church (January 2009) the first series we ever did was simply called, "DNA". The talks covered 5 specific topics that we wanted to define our church. "Taking Risks" was one of them.

Since that time, we've taken almost no risks at all. At times I've convinced myself that we were taking a risk, but really we weren't. We've tried new things. We've experimented with stuff. We've even spent money and used resources... but we haven't really done anything that had a good possibility of failure.

2012 is going to be different. We're going add service time options and move towards starting a campus (fall 2012). For the first time since our launch, it's becoming impossible for me to keep up with what's going on in every area of the church.

Yes, I am peeing myself over this. However, if we allow fear to paralyze us and our love for comfort to keep us from moving forward, we're going to simply EXIST as a church. For me personally, I think that's a pretty lame place to be and not worth giving my life to.