organic paradigm shift

My Christmas present from Amazon arrived finally a couple of days ago. It included Neil Coles book on their organic church planting movement in the US. They have now seen almost 800 churches planted in 6 years. And although each one has an average of 16 people, this represents over 10,000 people in total, around 40% of whom were previously non-churched. The other factor is that rather than plateauing out like most mega-churches of this number, the movement will continue to expand exponentially, without costing millions of dollars or requiring 1000's of men and women to take 3 years out studying at seminary.

What has surprised and pleased me about the book is that it is not a 'here's 10 steps to how to start the latest model of church planting movement' type book, but instead it is a mind renewing book, rightly so because as Neil has correctly understood what we are dealing with here is a new paradigm not a new model as such. And unless people grasp the new way of seeing/thinking about church they will only end up frustrated if they attempt to emulate what Neil and others are doing.

PS. I would love to get Neil over here sometime. Anyone else interested?

posted by alexander @ 10:03 AM    2 comments

2 Comments:

Alexander,
Neil Cole is in Europe in early February. Perhaps you could arrange something with him on short notice.

By  Steve Bufton, at 7:30 AM  

Thanks Steve for flagging that up. I have been in touch with Neil, but my feeling is that it would be too short notice for Feb, so would look at later in the year.

By  alexander, at 11:56 AM  

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