Every Church an Evangelizing Community!
This is a workshop given by Bishop Stephen Cottrell, and facilitated by Father David Harrison, at the Vital Church Planting Conference 2011.
Length: 1 hour
[podcast]https://institute.wycliffecollege.ca/resources/Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition Bishop Stephen Cottrell.mp3[/podcast]
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Vital Church Planting 2011 West takes place in Edmonton, AB, May 26-28
Vital Church Planting 2011 East takes place in Toronto, ON, May 31-June 2
Watch short promotional video here.
Website for both conferences here
Bishop Steven Croft will be the main speaker at both VCP 2011 East & West .
My liveblogging of the Exponential Conference, the largest gathering of church planters in North America, is over. Most of my posts were notes on specific sessions, and I never reflected on the conference as a whole. Here is a random collection of surprises, learnings, and people I met:
People I met:
I did go to a specific networking session to meet some US Anglicans, but this was no highlight! As I shared the kinds of Fresh Expressions I am working on, trying to connect with completely non-churched people by serving their needs and building communities where discipleship happens and worship can arise, I noticed that US Evangelicals were thrilled. They are not as secularized or post-Christian as Canada, and so church planting for them is focused on the dechurched, but they could see this is where they’re headed and want to know more. The US Anglicans, however, seemed dumbfounded. This was depressing. I’m sure that’s not representative of everyone, but it’s who I met!
One overall impression: Canadian Anglicans are way ahead in thinking about reaching the non-churched. American Evangelicals are way ahead in starting new worshipping communities for the dechurched. We both have something to learn from each other!
Some of the big themes:
And finally, some of the surprises:
That’s all for now. I definitely hope to attend another year, but not alone. I was an anomaly in three respects – being Canadian, and Anglican, and focused on the non-churched as well as the dechurched. I would have gained so much more having some conversations with other pastors at the pub after each day, but most of the other pastors there did this with their own teams, and aren’t allowed to enjoy a beer anyway!
Anyone interested in attending the next one? It will be focused on AND – being both missional and attractional. Definitely worth attending with a Canadian Fresh Expressions team…and at least one round is on me!
The conference ended almost a week ago, but here are a few notes from my final workshop, on coaching.
The workshop was with Bob Harrington, a Canadian now living in the southern US, working with the Restore Training Center, all about the training of msisional church planters. The host church’s web site is http://www.harpethcc.com/ but he also works with Stadia.
He defines coaching as asking questions to lead people. A few different terms not to be confused:
A mentor goes ahead and pours themselves back into someone else, while a coach comes alongside and draws out questions.
A consultant comes as an expert, sets an agenda, brings expertise, gives solutions and content. A coach brings expertise in asking good questions, helping a person articulate their goals, and gives process.
Settings are 1:1, 3’s, Clusters of 4-7 or Groups of 8-16
A church planter has:
A few more soundbites:
Group Coaching of 8-16 people looks like:
Wednesday’s last plenary was a mixture of these three speakers, each answering the question, “What does it take to transform a community?”
Brenda Salter McNeil is a well known speaker who focused on racial reconciliation using Acts 1:8. She described reconciliation in “Samaria”, when people are so different they say “God ought to do something about ‘those people’” can follw this cycle:
Two other lines: Church as a “radical third culture people that create a whole new reality”and, “when we engage difference, the differences we engage transform us.”
Shane Claiborne is a well known author and founder of the “Simple Way” community in Philadephia. Transformation is:
Our community doesn’t need more churches we need a church
Dave Gibbons is lead pastor of Newsong, an international multi-campus church.
My second workshop today was an interview with these three authors. Neil Cole wrote Organic Church, Alan Hirsch The Forgotten Ways and Shane Claiborne is best known as the founder of a community called the Simple Way, and has written a couple books, too. I’ve organized their notes here:
Neil Cole
Alan Hirsch
An Evangelist brings shape to how God is trying to woo people to Him.Shane Claiborne
Us: “God, do something!” God: “I did do something, I made you, now get out!”This was a plenary session packed with speakers!
The first was Reggie McNeal, of the Leadership Network. He described the Missional Church this way:
Some soundbites from Reggie. I didn’t find he had much of value to say – mostly preaching to the choir in a humorous, but overly dramatic performance:
The second part was an interview of Alan Hirsch and Ed Stetzer. Hirsch is the founder of the Forge Missional Training network, and Stetzer is a well known writer and analyst of church life in America. Stetzer mostly spoke about metrics beyond “nickels, noses and numbers” suggesting we measure metrics like how many friends people have outside the church, and whether leaders are modelling what they teach. Hirsch spoke a great deal about risk, including these soundbites
We have domesticated life and the idea of God
The third part was Efrem Smith, who I described in an earlier post as the planter of a multi-ethnic church in Minnesota. He was a very different speaker in plenary, he was clearly in “preaching mode” and drawing on his theatre background in what made for a very energetic sermon. I appreciated a few things he said, but found he took a few exegetical liberties that left me looking for substance beneath the energy and hype. Some of his soundbites from this talk:
My first workshop of the day was with Efrem Smith, who planted Sanctuary Covenant Church, a multi-ethnic church plant in Minneapolis. He started with a core group of 22, that grew to 80 before launch day.
