Missional Tribe social network Begins Tomorrow!!: The astonishing power of networking via the internet has become once more apparent. Bill Kinnon and six other Instigators, Peggy Brown, Rick Meigs, Sonja Andrews, Brad Sargent, Kingdom Grace and Brother Maynard are joining together to launch the Missional tribe Network. Talk about blogpower. You people blow my mind. It’s all happening tomorrow (Epiphany Jan 6). But you can get a preview right now by clicking here. I can’t wait.
Missional Non/Conference This Past Saturday: The astonishing power of networking was also revealed to me at our Seeding Missional Communities Learning Commons that happened this past Saturday. Three weeks before we were actually going to host this event, I called Ben Sternke in Ft. Wayne and asked if he was up for hosting it on January 3rd. He said yes. With no organization whatsoever I put a small post up on my blog here asking if twenty people would be interested in getting together to encourage, talk and challenge each other in the struggles and issues of seeding missional communities. I said if we got twenty people to positively commit (no backing out) we would do it. Twenty people committed in three days (of which about ten eventually backed out ☺). Then Chris Smith from here and here of Englewood then put it on facebook and then I piggybacked on that off my own face book account. Bill Kinnon (who asked his daughter how to do it) had to tell me how to do that. We promised little but collaboration. There was no charge, no book sales, no pompous personalities (uh well except for maybe me, for which I confess my sin ☺) with little to no experience living in missional church. We arrived in Ft Wayne on Saturday and I counted 89 people in the room at one time in the morning (not that numbers matter ☺). Could Ft. Wayne be the new Midwest “mecca” of Missional Church? ☺ We had short presentations by practitioners, then lively conversations, we broke up into smaller groups, we prayed through Luke 10 in silence and corporate prayer, we hung out during breaks and lunch, we were sent out for mission. Ben provided the room, chairs and the coffee. All the feedback I’ve had since Saturday is that many were encouraged, or challenged by something new, or just blessed to be among fellow collaborators. I was encouraged to see so many people of various age groups (although I’d say 80% under the age of 35) who are seeking to rid the practice of church of excess and get down to simplicity, authenticity and integrity in relation to living together as the church – including economics, community and mission. As of this writing Dan took some good notes here, and Wes did the same here. Chris posted notes from his presentation here.

Now a makeshift board is coming together and a website and we’re going to do it again!! Thanks to Ben Sternke who was our gracious host. Thanks to all presenters. Thanks to everyone who came and made this day so rich in Ft. Wayne, the new mecca of missional church (what does that mean?).