EXPONENTIAL CHURCH PLANTING CONFERENCE, DAY 1

Arrived in Orlando, Fl. for the 2008 Exponential Church Planting conference late Sunday night. I signed for two different events for this conference. The pre-conference intensive I signed up for was Multi-Ethnic Church Planting and the Pre-Launch Church Planting Track.

The pre-conference intensive began at 1:00pm on Monday afternoon and finished up in the morning of Tuesday. The featured speakers were Mont Mitchell; Mark DeMayz; Dr. George Yancey; and Jim Spoonts (www. mosaix.info).

Mont and Mark kicked things off, but Mark did an overview of Ephesians 4 and Revelation 2 in which he made a very STRONG argument that multi-ethnic churches are in fact mandated by Paul and in fact even Jesus in John 17:20-23. To be quite honest, this teaching blew me away and pierced my heart. What that means and how that will play out in the field, God has not revealed to me as of yet, but I am waiting.

Dr. Yancey is a professor of Sociology who shared the fact/stats of the current state of the church and the potential reasons why, i.e., systematic racism; fear; etc.... This was great data. The current state of the church statistically reveals that approximately 97% of the churches are mono-ethnic and 3% multi-ethnic. The stats show that America however, is changing rapidly and the future of the church must change to meet the ever-changing demographics.

Together all of these fellas are part of a group called The Mosaix Network which I have not fully been able to investigate as of yet, but this group seems to be on the Forefront of a huge movement. Their 7 Core Values are:
#1 - Embrace Dependency - not a system, but God!
#2 - Understand the Biblical Mandate
#3 - Take intentional steps
#4 - Develop Cross Cultural relationships
#5 - Pursue Cross Cultural Competence
#6 - Staff for Diversity
#7 - Mobilize for Impact

There are explanations of all, but too long to put in the blog. This was a great 2 day session and I am thankful to have had a seat at the table.

An African proverb was quoted today that was totally appropriate for this session:
"If you want to travel fast, travel alone; if you want to travel far, travel together."

If you read this blog, please pray that wisdom is imparted into me over the next 2+ days, and continue to pray for the project and the people of the Lehigh Valley!