Ten years ago this weekend I had a Sunday off and discovered why unchurched people don’t go to church. It’s called fresh coffee, bagels and the Sunday paper. I loved it!

It was just seven days before we launched Grace Church and seven days since my farewell from my previous ministry position. This was the lull before the storm! It would be pretty much non-stop for the next week and far, far beyond!

Anyway, sitting eating a bagel – or maybe even two in those days! – I realized that if we were serious about wanting to connect with people who did not know Jesus, we’d have to do a bit more than put on church as usual. They needed to have a reason to leave the comfort of their own homes on their only free day in the week.

After almost 30 years of what was in all honesty doing church for Christians, busting a gut to try to keep them all happy and frequently failing, a lot of re-thinking and re-shaping had to be done on the fly to make sure what we were starting was going to achieve its goals.

Let’s face it, every church says it wants to reach those who don’t know Christ, but the truth is most aren’t doing it and aren’t even shaped for it.

Changing things on the fly has become a way of life for us over the past ten years and we’re still constantly fine-tuning. After all this time it still feels like we’re flying by the seat of our pants, but that’s okay with me because I’ve done comfortable, predictable church before and it is most definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.

Some way down the road, I’m happy that so many people have their Sunday bagels and coffee with us now and not alone on their own patios.