The theme this week is missional church. I am kicking it off by pointing to a hot blog post from last week. David Fitch hosts a very important conversation, having picked up from Bro. Maynard. I wish it wasn't so personal - ie - Mark Driscoll and mega church attractional model vs. emerging/missional/monastic/house-church model ala Allelon (USA) and Forge (Australia) but at the heart of the conversation is a few key questions:
Obviously the cost factor ratio favors emerging/missional startups (inherited churches cost between 100k and 1 million to start) but how do these new organic communities sustain themselves financially?
How do we measure their success without resorting to the old systems of measurement (bigger is always better)?
How long do they need to start bearing fruit? And what does that fruit look like?
Do mega-churches attract primarily de-churched people?
Have a read and join the comments over there. If you are new to the conversation, remember the emerging church world is now a vast world with models still very traditional in structure (paid professionals, buildings, attractional-based sunday service) and much of it very organic, centrifugual, embedded, and missional.
Related: Andrew Hamilton (Forge National Director) on Incarnational vs Attractional
Technorati Tags: emergent, emerging church
