I really need a 10 k word limit, so read with grace.

I missed cohort last week because I was attending a church planters conference called Exponential in Orlando. (88-95 degrees and no rain ☺). I went hoping to refine my calling a bit, specifically to see if I have what it takes to plant churches, or revitalize the old churches that reek with the smell of death and complacency. As it turns out, this was almost the wrong question all together. The current trend in church planting is less about planting churches, and more about planting the gospel. Several of the biggest names in the plenary sessions demanded that we stop planting churches, almost angrily, and that we rather start making disciples. The idea, put too simply, is that to plant a church is to cast the same “churchy lure” into the lake that everyone else is casting their “churchy lure.” We need to not compete with other churches for the churched, but we need to redesign our lure and take our efforts to the Lake of the Unchurched. Attracting the broken or embittered anti-churched folks to a random, out of touch, morning after a “rough night”, where we all put on our happy face for 90 minutes, where we are otherwise out of touch with the lives of these people and then say goodbye for a week, will not, and cannot attract those people who aren’t operating as those who are already believers. The answer is to form missional communities, which are groups that ‘do life together’. If there never ends up being a Sunday morning service, no hearts break.