TOCP - Introduction

My name is Angela De Souza, I am the mother of four gorgeous children, Lorah-Kelly, Jordan, Daniel and Amy. My husband and I are the senior pastors of D7 Church and at the time of this writing I served in the capacity of Executive Pastor too. 

I can honestly say that no recipe or formula for church building exists - God does not work in this way! D7 Church is living proof of this. Not because we didn’t try, we did try, we tried just about everything. 

Oswald Chambers writes, “Never make a principle out of your experience, let God be as original with other people as He is with you.” In the same way I would say, don’t try and copy our journey or make principles out of our experiences, let God be as original with your church as He was with ours. We did not fit into a mould or a recipe, even though at first we tried to. Our bookshelf is lined with books that tell you what works and what doesn’t work. Our computer is filled with files of blog posts from mega-church pastors and documents with strategy from other churches. We have attended conferences and visited all sorts of churches to try and learn about building a church. 

It was only when we gave up and said so to God that we began to have breakthrough. This is our story. It was when we stopped trying to follow a formula and started to rely on the Holy Spirit that we truly saw God at work. This book is our story but that is all it is, nothing more. You will not find a formula or a strategy here; you will not find any ‘how tos’ or seven steps to achieve what you want. It was in our ignorance that God chose to move and in our utter dependence on Him that gave Him freedom to have His way. Nothing worked out as we had planned but everything turned out for the best. 

Our story has been recorded to encourage you on your journey and to glorify God. It is His church and He will have His way because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.  - 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

This is the introduction to The Tale of a Church Planter, more chapter snippets will follow in the meantime  find out more about this book here.