And I think that is where we are stumbling. If our faith is great, and our love is deep, how would those around us deny God? If we healed the sick, feed the poor, and moved mountains we couldn’t keep people AWAY.

The leaders job in all this isn’t necessarily to provide “content” (though to be honest, I’m not 100% sure I understand what you guys mean by that). God creates content, through people that come to the church. So for example, having many people who are former alcoholics in the church may mean helping them to minister to other people struggling with addictions. Or to the people of the church, and how we care for, pray for and love one another. So the leaders job is to keep everyone on task (and maybe motivated)?

And by the way, your thoughts were far from “bizarre”

I really appreciate the freedom in the tribe. The truth is, it seems, the people who look to enter planting, generally are looking for the free culture (words of Ian Buntain), which are not all available in the CNBC, unlike our US counterpart and aren’t willing to just go in many cases. They need the security to make it happen. I know I struggled with this. This makes me skeptical that we can even find 100 people in this regard.

I also want to see our church be a local church that sends and blesses others to plant. We would like to see some new and innovative ways, but bless it all the same.

Also I couldn’t agree more with the “poor evangelism” or “poor church planting equivalent” there would have to be some sort of guidance, but I see it more as people engaging a need in the city, helping some people out and if it never grows into a big “C” church and it blows up, at least it blessed some people along the way.

Oh, I am not confused about orthodoxy. I used traditional a lot and assumed orthodoxy would be understood in light of those with more traditional theology. But good reminder.

In terms of content, I do believe I am stuck here, but you’re right about needing to create content (but I am hoping it is shared, and not all the leader) I think we can have too much leader generated content and not enough laity involvement.

You’re correct about denomination/funding/application for fully or even half-funded planters, but the reality is, at least in our tribe, all you’ve ever really needed to plant a new church is the blessing of an existing church, so long as you were willing to forgo denominational funding. You speak as if lifting any and all evaluation would produce more or better, but I’m not so sure. That local church blessing thing still seems important to me. First off, it tends to be much more relational than denominational aptitude tests, and is based on life observation rather than a questionnaire. Next up, it’s got Biblical precedence in the sending of Paul and Barnabas. Lastly, it offers a layer of protection. Don’t hear me wrong, I’m not interested in protecting us from failure; if we only get 2 out of 100, that’s fine. It’s protecting everyone else. Frost and Hirsch talk about gospel inoculation as a result of poor evangelism. Practices like randomly ringing doorbells and trying to force a confession on the spot can result in people who were oblivious to the gospel forming a whole new barrier to it. They’ve got just enough of it to decide that they don’t want it and become resistant to it, without ever really getting the whole thing. The same can happen with thoughtless, careless, poorly executed church plants. I’d hate to send out people who will walk into an area and make it more difficult for there to ever be a church in that place. Somewhere along the line, there needs to be some form of accountability that still encourages exploration and newness.

Don’t confuse traditional with orthodox.

Love what you’re saying about leaders creating culture and enabling others to produce content. However, the leader still must create content. In Andy Crouch’s words, we don’t create culture, we make omelets, interstate highways, computer networks. language, and customs. We create artifacts, and those create culture: some intended and some not. As a leader, to create “environment” and web 2.0 user content, you’re still going to need to create content, but a different kind. You’ll need to think through what sort of content it will be.

Thanks for the good thinking. Looking forward to the next post. Defining success is an important step.