church plant

An Odd Bunch of Believers: The Sent Conference and Courage Beyond Institution

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If I were to describe in one word my New Orleans weekend at Sent: A Mennonite Church Planting Conference, my word would be Rihanna. More specifically, Anti, Rihanna’s newest, experimental, and critically confusing album. Being at Sent was like four consecutive listens through Anti (I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin, maybe I listened to Anti four consecutive times, maybe I didn’t).

From the raspy, just-smoked-a-pack vocals on “Higher,” a bite-size track that clocks in under two minutes, to the lyrical, repetitious to the point of Taize, 6-plus minute “Same Ol’ Mistakes,” that’s the landscape of Mennonite church planting, not to mention the off-album trap-as-hell “B***h Better Have my Money” and whimsically rebellious “FourFive Seconds” with Paul McCartney–that, too, is the landscape of Mennonite church planting. For every church that pushes the boundaries of our definition of “Mennonite,” that same church is shouting canonically Anabaptist truths. Continue reading →

Why Coffeeshop Ministries Should Fail

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The logic goes like this: Christians like coffee (and tea). Non-Christians like coffee (and tea). Pastors really like coffee (and tea). Why don’t we unite around the things we like and use coffee to grow our community? And thus, a whole generation of missiologists and pastors came up with a really, really good theory–in theory.

Coffeeshop ministries are trendy. Especially in the Methodist church, where church plants seem to go hand-in-hand with brand management, but it’s true in many corners of American Christianity. In February, I was at the Progressive Youth Ministry Conference in Dallas where–surprise–an evening event was held at Union, a charming Methodist-funded dual-purpose storefront with the tagline “coffee. community.cause.” and a Tuesday evening worship service that means “kiss” in ancient Greek. Continue reading →