Neil Cole has a gracious response to my response to his article based on his blog posts. (Conversations via the internets get complicated in a hurry.) Here are my final thoughts on this topic:
Neil is a really smart guy
I should have said this yesterday; if you are not familiar with Neil's writing you should be. He is one of the leading thinkers in the missional movement. Along with guys like Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch, Neil is forcing a lot of us to rethink how we approach church. Anyone who forces us to think rather than just do is a huge asset to the Kingdom.
Neil and I agree on a lot of things
We agree that church is not a service on a weekend. I'm sure I place more emphasis on the weekend experience than Neil would, but I am strongly opposed to the idea that the only, or even the most important, expression of church happens in a building on Sunday. If people are not living in community, growing daily in their faith and making a real difference in their world then the church isn't being the church.
We agree that the way we've have always done church will not be effective to reach the next generation, or even a large percentage of the present generation. We have to keep the Gospel central AND continue to find new ways to be Jesus in our world.
And we agree that multiplication, not addition, is the only way to make a dent in the number of people facing an eternity without Christ. We don't see eye to eye on math, however. Neil seems to indicate that 50 organic churches of 20 people is multiplication while two multisite campuses of 500 people is addition. I would argue that 1000=1000 no matter how you count. It may take longer for the 500 person campus to reproduce than it will a church of 20, but the result will still be multiplication in the Kingdom.
Neil and I don't see eye to eye on a few things
Neil is opposed to video teaching while I see it as just another tool in the toolbox for evangelism and discipleship. We're probably never going to agree on this one.
Neil feels that small and organic has the bigger Kingdom impact while I believe that being large and small at the same time has the most potential. The work Seacoast is doing in a poor neighborhood in North Charleston and the response we've had to the Haitian crisis are only possible because of the pooled resources of several medium to large congregations working together.
Finally, I have been telling people that I know Neil, but he says we have never met. This, however, falls under the tree falling in the forest rule; if you meet someone but they don't remember you, did you ever really meet. :)
I appreciate Neil taking the time to write a gracious response and I hope he knows that I have utmost respect for his work and his writing. He is challenging me to think beyond what I know and I hope I am doing the same for him. We're on the same team working for the same goal; we're just coming from different directions.
Thankful for your well thought out and gracious response...its a good example to those of us (ok, ME) who want to fly off the handle and respond with pure emotion and a few imagined UFC moves.
Thanks Geoff.
Posted by: Brett | April 22, 2010 at 07:09 AM