Great encouragement

I had a good surprise this week finding a very good post on Emergent Village written by Andrew Hamilton "6 reasons not to quit", it is interesting to see how it repercussioned, this post collected so far 25 comments (one from me), it might seem how church planters are thirsty of this kind of encouragement.
Andrew shares a little of his experience ahead a ministry in Perth, where they have been ministried for already 4 years, without a single person signing up to follow Jesus. His feelings about seeing himself as a failure was echoed by many people who commented.
As I have been tried to share here, we have been gathering to plant a church in a North Zone neighborhood in São Paulo, we have been gathering weekly since the beggining of this year with expectations to gather more people around us, we have not succeeded so far, even with all invitations that I have been made, we were unable to bring a friend here yet. My obsession on reaching friends has lots of times turned out to frustration of being unable to gather unchurched friends with us. By the other side, I have been also unable to give up, many frustrated nights has followed some mornings with hope when I weak up expecting a new way to impact some friends with our witness. I have been encouraged thinking that we are just closer to the day we will make it.
It has been difficult, but we reather stick with a small group strategy than appeal to an impersonal one like a stablished church, I think if we are not able to develop a small group right now, we won't do it in the future, so we have to learn now but it takes patience.
This is not to raise pity to me, but to share how Andrew's words gave more power to the hope that have been attached me to this dream.

Tag - church planting; hope