Exponential Day Two

Today was a great day to be in Orlando. I was able to interact with several people I hoped to meet with as well as met some new people. Perhaps the best session I attended was Alan Hirsch talking about the mission Dei, or mission of God. More accurately, it is God's mission. The one that Jesus told the church to join in. I really appreciated his blunt approach to sharing the mission and applying it to the church.

 

This being my last day at the conference, I am going to make one astute observation and then pack to go home and get in bed.

           

There seems to be two main strategy camps present at this Exponential. The first camp, represented by people like Alan Hirsch and Neil Cole, is focused on the organic nature of the church. Call it house church, simple church, or organic church if you like. The primary focus is on simple rapidly reproducible church structures. The second camp, represented by people like Dave Ferguson and Bill Easum, is focused on launching as big as you can and then moving quickly to establish satellite campuses. To be fair, Ferguson did suggest going to multiple services before going to satellites, but the point is that these two camps are basically opposites. Organic churches are relatively small, loosely networked communities of believers. Satellite campus churches are essentially decentralized mega churches.

 

My thoughts on this observation are that I feel sorry for the church planter who is uniquely called to plant a church of about 100 to 300 people, and I wonder at the wisdom of the satellite strategy. It seems prone to pastor ego inflating.