Had a chance to attend a meeting today sponsored by Leadership Network (www.leadnet.org) with pastors and staff from around the country who have done church restarts. Warren Bird and Dave Travis hosted and about 15 different churches and 25 different leaders were present. Valuable to get insight and cross-pollination perspective on what God seems to be doing in places across North America.
Anytime I can hear from other leaders I'm always amazed at how approaches vary so widely in pursuing mission and yet how common the threads of experience can be. Whether people are in Phoenix, Dallas, Miami, Toronto, Chicago, Tulsa or anywhere else, the people are different but the people are the same, the challenges are different but the challenges are the same. No two churches are exactly alike and yet the issues feel so similar and the kinship is strong as I hear the stories shared.
It does seem that we are one of the few churches, at least at this gathering, who's primary experience is in urban and "redemption restarts"--in other words restarting a church that is stuck or in decline in an urban area. Many of the other churches present had merged with churches that were already somewhat effective and strong but wanted the backing and connection of a larger, better-resourced multi-site church network. It got me thinking if that would be something God may bring our way in Chicago or other U.S. cities in the future. Don't know--just prayer-wondering out loud.
Looking forward to getting back to sweet home Chicago in a few hours. Hopefully, our great Chicago weather will clear up enough to get a plane down here from O'hare. I'm planning for a long night by the looks of things--brought plenty of reading material for just such a reason
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