The pandemic brought an instant end to our “dinner church” model. We tried to restart it once society started returning to normal, but we had no luck in bringing people back. It was time to revert back to a standard Sunday service or create a new kind of model.
During this time, I had a dream in which a man descended a ladder coming out of heaven to a platform with two water slides. The first slide had color and looked thrilling with twists and turns, while the second slide was grey and straight. The man began to sing a song about how I needed to give myself over to the fun slide and enjoy it. The song then ended with him pointing to the boring slide as he sang the question, “Should I go down number 2?” I responded by getting ready to go down it as a few people looked at me and shook their heads “no” with a smirk. I was supposed to be on the good slide.
I applied the dream to our relaunch as I invited the board and the church to imagine something new. We had a few creative plans, but the one we set our sights on was a return to a Sunday morning service with some additions. There would be a cereal bar at 9am, our service at 10am, and a ministry hour at 11am. Before we launched, an old attendee visited from Texas and said that he felt the Spirit telling him we were supposed to transition back to a morning church. Perfect timing.
We discern dreams so that when they’re spiritual, we’ll be kept on track with what God is up to. For Laban, it was a warning dream. If he had his own way, he would have destroyed Jacob’s life. But God had Jacob’s back and gave Laban a dream to prevent him from hurting him. A moment that would have turned into great turmoil was converted into a moment in which the two made a deal with one another. How might God’s messages intervene in our lives if we listen discernibly?
Jamin Bradley 
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