We hope you enjoy our weekly round-up of the best church planting blogs we read this week:
- My Theology of Worship
- 16 Questions That Will Help Us Make It in Ministry Part Nine
- 16 Questions That Will Help Us Make It in Ministry Part Eleven
Tags: 2 Comments
Have a random question on the amount of conferences that are taking place…especially on missional living and the model seems to contradict the teaching.
It seems from experience that at the typical conference there are a couple thousands people, charged $300, listening to the same speakers, talk on the same subjects, and not really applying any of the lessons other than a lot of tweeting on twitter.
I was thinking it would be far more effective to see much more local efforts toward conferences. I am not against conferences, learning, or spending money, but is it effective? It seems more appealing to start more local efforts where pastors gather to listen / learn then discuss application in their own geographic area.
It seems the pattern we have now is that it creates celebrity pastors and sends the wrong message to younger pastors about the amount of work and effort to starting a new church or movement.
Any thoughts? Surely there are other people wrestling with this…can you point me in their direction?
Michael,
Thanks for your comment. I especially like the part about no application except Tweets. I do think the as a culture we like our celebrities and we will travel and pay money to see/hear them even in the church. Pastor’s get what Will Manicini calls Conference Haze. They go to a conference get all excited and want to apply the latest model whether than actually contextualizing. Exponential 09 did a good job this year of saying to pastor, please don’t copy but contextualize.
Personally I think in our current culture there will always be a place for the large conference. Not many pastors would travel an hour up the road to hear from a pastor that’s moderately successful. We like our superstars.
I do think that collaborative peer networks could be and probably should be championed. What would it look like for Catalyst and others to encourage local groups for accountability and further dialogue?
I’d say you are on to something and should start something locally where you are. If I hear of others wrestling in a similar way I’ll put them in touch with you. Let us know what you do and how it turns out and we’ll do a follow up post. I’ll even Tweet about it.