I've been reading the latest Frost & Hirsch book called 'The Faith of Leap' and it got me thinking.

You know the stats. Declining attendance, small churches closing the doors, the same pre-Fall launch and gusto to invite new fresh blood into the church with the latest program and sermon series.....

Unless you're the best and brightest (the best show), most churches are dwindling in size. Their importance has already lost out in our culture today, although some have isolated perceptions legalism can return to provide the moralistic balance society needs.

The question is why isn't anything happening? Why, if churches all face the same threats, are we not seeing massive overhauls of how we 'do church'?

I think the answer is quite simple. The single element preventing most churches from embracing a dangerous gospel is our appetite for risk.

Continue reading →

Missional is all the rage in contemporary churches in America today. The biggest boxed evangelical churches think they're missional because they include the word somewhere within a planning document. The smallest organic inner city church thinks they're missional because that best describes their posture in the community.

Many churches are trying to make some form of transition from 'seeker sensitive' to 'missional'. Some would think this is an impossible switch.

Not so fast, I've seen it work, once. Continue reading →

I suppose I'm a 'church planter' to churched folk. In reality, since day 1 I've been a leader a church, or church movement. There's no 'plant' antecedent that magically drops when the church hits a certain number of Sunday morning worshippers.

What bemuses me (or maybe it amuses me?) is the nature of church planting today. Churches still insist on massive capital campaigns in order to plant a church.

Tens of thousands of dollars to infrastructure and salary in order to take the 'risk' of church planting.

I want to simply state it can be done for nothing. (I do'nt know if it can be done well, but it certainly can be done for less. Continue reading →

If you're in Calgary or area you MUST MUST MUST come to the free Dave Fitch lectures that are taking place on Wednesday and Thursday (Feb 16&17). Dave will be discussing the topics from his forthcoming book "The End of Evangelicalsm".

If you're church is feigning interest in anything missional then you need to come and start, engage, or complete your dialogue.

HEre is a link to the Facebook event. Continue reading →

Woke up today and checked the news reader and came across what I initially thought was an assessment of me.

Jason Coker is dissecting a failed missional church plant--his own. I was glued at his assessment in the aptly named: "Missional Postmortem: Intentionally unorthodox decisions that may have contributed to morbidity.

This got me thinking, the response at Pastoralia has been tremendous, but I wonder if I can capture some of the online wisdom to fuel an existing church plant--my own.

So piggybacking off of Jason's honestly (I hope he doesn't mind the hijack) here is my appraisal of Calgary Church one, maybe 2, (or is it 3?) years after 'launch'. Continue reading →