(Editor’s
Note: The following article was written on
Conference in the
Today was the last day of a
conference I went to for northern mid-west area called NextChurch
Conference ’43.
It was a great time. I learned a
ton in my old age at this thing and I want to give you a personal first-hand
report of the conference. Here are my
top 10 observations about it…
10 – These kind of churches are really the hot stuff today. I admit it – there was a
time when I was super-skeptical of all these kinds of churches. When I was in my 20s and 30s near the turn of
the century… it seemed everyone had a simple church or organic church concept. I would scoff that the churches were so
simple that they didn’t really exist but in the minds of my friends. And I would joke that organic churches were
just for hippies—just like organic food.
But you know, after a few decades of gathering like minds the whole
movement really took off, as a movement.
Of course, I still wouldn’t consider these kind
of churches – or missional churches – to be the
mainstream. But I’m not sure if they
ever wanted to be or will be. However,
this conference was a really hot deal. More on that later in the report.
9 – It was really eerie for the conference to meet in a dead
super-church. This church was in the suburbs of
8 – This kind of event shows that the tide has really turned. No longer is the momentum
with the churches so big they should have their own zip code. Up until the last decade there was still
quite a surge of super-church obsession in our country. But with most of these regional NextChurch conferences happening in the rented out
facilities of now fractioned or fading super-churches who no longer have enough
money to pay the heating bill – the tide has definitely turned. I wonder if these churches will get together
for larger movement style events more often now, after decades of playing under
the radar. For one thing, they really do
get everyone excited about what is going on in the kingdom. For another thing, there’s
all these empty superchurch sanctuaries to fill up
and it seems like a waste not to. They now
remind me of the old cathedrals in
7 – Most of the people at this conference have day jobs. When I went to conferences
near the turn of the century – it was mostly ministers present, with a smattering
of “team members” wealthy enough to take off work for a few days for
conferencing. But at THIS conference I
was amazed at how many people I spoke to had regular jobs. Since the conference was regional and on a
Saturday I guess it was more meant for these “real people.” The funny thing is,
many of the churches present brought nearly their entire church to the
conference. The Solomon’s Porchers from
6 – Of course, most of the “ministers” here have day jobs too. I’m still amazed at how
many of these new kind of churches this century have
bi-vocational leaders at the helm. When
I first saw friends go into that I always thought “it’ll never last.” I figured one “profession” would end up
ruling out the other. It seemed so
illogical to me. But it seems to have
worked. By having another job they
relieved the financial pressure for the church to “make it” so quick and the
churches just took their time doing what God was calling them to do and
be. I don’t think I could have done it –
but then, what do I know, I’m an old fart.
I met a woman at this conference who was the point leader for starting 14
churches in
5 – Most of these churches are not successful by prior standards. I’m not sure if they care at all – but most of
the churches at this conference don’t have the three things that most of my
generation and the one before me considered to measure success: 1) large
full-time staffs, 2) large buildings or 3) large crowds. Most of the churches at this event are led by
part-time multi-staff groups that I couldn’t pick out of the lineup of their
whole church crowd. Most of them meet in
small to medium sized retro-fitted facilities that I bet I likewise couldn’t
pick out of the block they are on. And most
of these churches have from 50-150 people in them, with a few creeping up at 300-400.
4 – Rob Bell is really getting old. He brought a camel up on
the stage and that was really shocking.
You’d think that after 50 years doing his gig that he would have no surprising
ideas left. When I saw his name on the
web-site for the conference I couldn’t believe they were bringing him back out
of retirement to speak. But I’m glad
they did. He tried to push the camel through
a tight stone arch he had them build on stage and the camel started to kick at
him and the he relieved himself on the super-church stage right where the Plexiglas
pulpit used to be (the Camel did this, not Rob Bell – even he hasn’t tried that
yet). It was hilarious. The goof ball must be nearly 80 years old now
– and he’s showing it. But he still had
us on the edge of our seats learning.
3 – Mini-Denominations (or their new incarnation) are definitely on
the rise. All
these missional movements and crazy church models
weren’t really that impacting to the masses until they began to really multiply
in the 2010s and 2020s. Take Grand
Rapids: one storefront church with 70 people in it and a part time pastor that
worked at the bagel shop didn’t really make a huge dent in that city of one
million people back in 2005. But then
that storefront church spawned 12 more storefront and house churches in the
next decade—and then those 12 multiplied another 34 in the following decade. In one city that’s a huge dent. That network of churches has become a de-facto
denomination. They would never call it
that. They call it an “association” or a
“covering” or a “web.” But they’re
providing for those churches the same thing my denomination provided for me
when I was a young church planter – financial and theological accountability
and the networking that comes from a broader church family. I always wondered what would become of the
idea of denominations when they began to die.
Apparently, we just needed different, and more local, denominations. But we still needed them for something.
2 – I still think they threw some of the baby out with the
bathwater. There are a lot of things that are still
missing in this movement even as it turns this corner. They still don’t know how to resource each
other like the good ol super-churches did. For all their hidden warts – those big
churches really did become great places to get ideas and be encouraged in your
ministry. I miss that. Perhaps conferences like these will someday
provide that for these smaller church movements. I wish someone had been more visionary in resourcing these churches all along the way. They also threw out a lot of the leadership
lessons of the prior church. Some of
that leadership stuff is only now being rediscovered, relanguaged
and reapplied. I think many of these
smaller churches are being led well – but the larger movement isn’t being led
that well. Without super-church pastors
to look to it’s been hard for them to know who to look to other than themselves…
so the broader vision needs a boost to reach the world.
1 – This movement has exponential momentum written all over
it. You
can only build buildings SO big. You can
only have so many amazing crowd communicators.
There are only so many acres of land to build on in the big cities, even
in the suburbs anymore. So the
super-church thing faced an uphill battle the past 15 years. But these missional,
organic & simpler kind of churches and networks have
what one archaic speaker from my childhood used to call “The Big Mo.” Momentum. And they
are more potentially exponential than any of those super-churches I used to admire
so much. At the end of the conference
some guy I hadn’t heard of spoke with great authenticity and authority from
Acts 13. He had all those that felt God calling them to
be sent out to start a new church that year stand up. About 500 people did so! Then he asked everyone to pray for 5 minutes
about who should be standing from their church but wasn’t yet—those called that
hadn’t answered the call. In 5 minutes
another 1,000 stood up or they were lifted up by their churches. Literally lifted up out of their seats and
set apart. Then these churches laid
hands on all 1,500 of those bagel shop employees and factory workers and
lawyers and teachers. And they sent them
out to multiply this movement for the kingdom.
I tell you what – I never saw that happen at those entertaining
satellite feed video conferences 40 years ago!
And maybe that’s why this super-church is full of several hundred
churches I never thought would make it rather than the one big one that used to
fill it.
Past Eutychus Reports::
The Present War and the
Bush Doctrine
Voting on a
“Traditional” Pastor
Born in 1974, Dr. Eutychus D. Bailey served as a pastor in the
early decades of the 21st century.
He “now” writes a column on the state of the mid-century church &
culture which is being retrieved by us from the future because of recent
technological advances enabling us to retrieve his articles 40 years before
they are published. Depending on your
time-travel ISP speed, you may be able to reach the old codger by e-mailing him
at [email protected].
©2004 Eutychus Bailey
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