Fixing What’s (Not?) Broken

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

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One of the guiding principles of NEXT Church is a focus on healthy congregations. That’s what drives us, rather than an ideological or theological agenda. A big part of our focus is to identify, celebrate and support places of health in our denomination so that they can propagate.

But what does health look like? How do we know it when we see it? And what about churches that are currently struggling?

As a co-chair of NEXT Church, this is something our strategy team thinks about a lot. I think we all know (or serve) churches that are struggling, but that have a lot of potential—potential to transform, potential to be a vibrant witness to Jesus Christ in their neighborhood, potential to grow in depth or breadth of ministry. Maybe they need a little inspiration, or some hopeful connection with colleagues, or a burst of energy and new ideas that comes from, say, a kick-butt conference.

But we also know that countless churches will close their doors over the next several decades. In many presbyteries, church property is sold and the proceeds go to fund new church developments and other emerging ministries. In National Capital Presbytery, where I serve, such a fund is aptly and poignantly named the Resurrection Fund.

But what can we learn from these churches that close? And more specifically, what can we learn that will help churches that have potential but may be in danger of closing?

I recently read about survivorship bias at one of my favorite blogs, You Are Not So Smart, which challenges conventional wisdom on all sorts of topics. Here it is in a nutshell:

The Misconception: You should study the successful if you wish to become successful.

The Truth: When failure becomes invisible, the difference between failure and success may also become invisible.

You can read the whole (long!!) post at this link, but here’s the bit that stuck out to me. During World War II, the U.S. military sought to make their planes as bullet-proof as possible:

The military looked at the bombers that had returned from enemy territory. They recorded where those planes had taken the most damage. Over and over again, they saw the bullet holes tended to accumulate along the wings, around the tail gunner, and down the center of the body. Wings. Body. Tail gunner. Considering this information, where would you put the extra armor? Naturally, the commanders wanted to put the thicker protection where they could clearly see the most damage, where the holes clustered. But [statistician Abraham] Wald said no, that would be precisely the wrong decision. Putting the armor there wouldn’t improve their chances at all. 

Do you understand why it was a foolish idea? The mistake, which Wald saw instantly, was that the holes showed where the planes were strongest. The holes showed where a bomber could be shot and still survive the flight home, Wald explained. After all, here they were, holes and all. It was the planes that weren’t there that needed extra protection, and they had needed it in places that these planes had not. The holes in the surviving planes actually revealed the locations that needed the least additional armor. Look at where the survivors are unharmed, he said, and that’s where these bombers are most vulnerable; that’s where the planes that didn’t make it back were hit.

I still think that NEXT is right in its focus on congregational potential and health. But this article leads me to wonder about the “airplanes” that don’t make it:

  • What can we learn about ministry from people who are not in ministry anymore?
  • How would our neighbors describe and interpret the mission of our churches? What do people who don’t attend church think the purpose of the church is? Or should be?
  • How can we glean the insights of churches that close in a way that moves beyond lament (which is important, of course) and into vital information that builds up the body of Christ?

The article continues:

Colleges and conferences prefer speakers who shine as examples of making it through adversity, of struggling against the odds and winning. The problem here is that you rarely take away from these inspirational figures advice on what not to do, on what you should avoid, and that’s because they don’t know. Information like that is lost along with the people who don’t make it out of bad situations or who don’t make it on the cover of business magazines – people who don’t get invited to speak at graduations and commencements and inaugurations.

Some years ago the session of the church I served had an off-site retreat at another church in the area. I invited a member of the other church to talk to my ruling elders about some exciting new endeavors underway there. Unbeknownst to me, however, these plans had turned sour due to some missteps along the way. The person’s presentation turned out to be a postmortem about everything that had gone wrong. I left the retreat feeling uneasy that I had subjected them to such a buzzkill of a presentation. But the session found it fascinating and helpful… and even oddly hopeful! They still talk about that presentation years later.

Rather than scare them away from trying anything new, it gave them concrete information they could use and pitfalls to avoid. They were deeply thankful to this fellow traveler who took a chance in sharing a story of “failure” and vulnerability.

Where do you see survivorship bias at work?

And how might the NEXT Church combat it?


MamdMaryAnn McKibben Dana is co-chair of NEXT Church. She is author of numerous articles and essays and the book Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time, published through Chalice Press. Connect with her at The Blue Room.

photo credit: gbaku via photopin cc

NEXT Church is Not About You!

By Frank Spencer

As I have continued to engage in the NEXT Church movement, I continue to find the extended community of the PC (USA) upholding me in my faith journey.  What follows is an excerpt from my book, The Benefit of the Doubt.  These passages are taken from the Chapter, “It’s not about you!”  Let’s keep this in mind as we all discern together how we will be Church together.

*****

Spencer BookIt’s not about you!  That phrase may not be the most fashionable in today’s world of customized products, online shopping, mommy make-overs and human bodies as walking billboards.  We live in a fundamentally self-centered culture.  Even old commercial slogans evoke melody and message in the TV generation.  I bet you can sing right along with these words:

“You deserve a break today!”

or

“Have it your way!”

From the TV generation to the Facebook generation the self-focus has intensified.  We have our own web pages.  We tweet about what we are having for lunch, as if anyone really cared.  We hire personal college admissions coaches, personal trainers, personal shoppers, financial planners, lawyers, and accountants, all to improve the life of ME Incorporated.

But it’s not all about ME, at least not when we talk about faith.  There are two dimensions of this external dynamic to which we should pay particular attention.  The first is that God is sovereign.  God has set forth the plan for the world.  We know God through God’s revelation to us………..

When we acknowledge that God is sovereign, the affirmation of God incarnate that has occurred in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the whole universe.  However, to acknowledge the truth of that claim requires the ceding of control by the individual because our finite minds cannot fully grasp the concept of an infinite God engaging humankind in this way.  Ceding control is something most of us fear on many levels…………….

The answer lies in the faith of the community.  This is the second external element of faith.  Faith exists within a community rather than as the province of one soul, one mind or one heart.  The faith of a community takes on dimensions that eclipse the capacity of any individual.  The first time I heard this concept, I wasn’t sure what exactly to make of it.  How can a community have a faith?  Surely faith is something we must each wrestle with for ourselves.  Like Jacob, I will grapple all night and will not let go of God until I am victorious or vanquished.  But it is my individual struggle.  Ironically, that attitude captures both the intellectual and the egotist in all of us.

But it’s not about me.  It’s about God and God’s faith in God’s people, us.  It is the community that preserves and passes the faith down to the next generation.  The community is there for me when I need support and sometimes I am there when others need help.  Even sinners and doubters can bear witness to the sovereignty of God and to God’s faithfulness to us.  In this sense the faith of the church relieves me of having to have it all sorted out myself.  I become part of the community that has wrestled with these same issues for centuries, and is still wrestling because we are not finished and will never be finished……………………..

Our Reformed theology specifically rejects the idea that each individual controls his or her fate relative to personal salvation.  In fact, it is not only OK to die with doubt; it is inevitable that each of us will.  God has acted in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and through that grace has redeemed the world.  Our human response is not determinative of the mind of God.

Thus, the community of faith that proclaims the truth of God’s revelation in Christ Jesus and welcomes those who doubt, wherever they are in their journey, is the place where faith can build and develop in safety.

“Wherever you are, there we will meet you.”

That should be our communal promise.  This is not to say that whatever an individual believes is right and true and that’s OK.  Such an attitude breeds a consumption notion of the church, a desire to extract whatever good I can for myself and move on.  Faith builds over time as one lives, studies and worships in a community.  That is how we live Anselm’s credo of faith seeking understanding…………………


Frank Clark Spencer is the President of Habitat for Humanity Charlotte and a student in the Masters of Divinity program at Union Presbyterian Seminary. Before turning to full-time ministry, Frank had an outstanding business career which included creating one of North Carolina’s 50 largest public companies, leading the company to its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, and being recognized by Ernst and Young as 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas. Frank has been an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 1994, is the past Chairman of Montreat Conference Center and currently serves on the Presbyterian Board of Pensions. He was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and was named a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School. You may find additional information at www.FSpencer.com.  

Breaking News about NEXT 2014

Westminster Presbyterian in Minneapolis, site of our 2014 gathering

Westminster Presbyterian in Minneapolis, site of our 2014 gathering

We are excited to announce our co-directors for the 2014 NEXT National Gathering: Chad Herring and Reggie Weaver. Chad is a teaching elder at Southminister Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, KS and has been involved in NEXT Church for three years. He currently serves on our advisory team. Reggie is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago and is on the NEXT strategy team. He was also a preacher at our gathering in Dallas two years ago.

Have you marked your calendar yet? We have added a day to the conference to allow more room for reflection, networking and connecting with other conferees about the content. Hope to see you in Minneapolis March 31 – April 2, 2014.

NEXT Conferences are inspiring, hopeful places. Don’t want to take our word for it? Here’s a reflection from Ed Brenegar about the 2013 conference, written a few days after Charlotte:

~

The 2013 Next Church Conference in Charlotte was a time of stolen moments away from the demands and opportunities of our individual ministries.  This gathering of Presbyterians was different because it was so personal (being with old friends), relational (meeting new ones), and worshipful. It was less about what is in our heads, and more about what we share in our hearts. In many respects, this NEXT Church conference was a foretaste of the church that is emerging.

It was a refreshing time for two reasons:

One is the honesty about where we are in the Presbyterian world, both on a personal level and a denominational one.  There is great healing that is needed in our church which cannot come without a honest, humble reflection on who we are as Christ’s people. Out of this recognition comes the sense that if our connectionalism isn’t relational, the church cannot survive.  This moment in time gave me hope for the future of our church.

Second was the experience of worship. It was strategic, rather than programmatic.  It created an environment for reflection and interaction, rather than just be the obligatory feature of a church conference. The use of ribbons as social objects for entering us into worship was a brilliant innovation. We began by taking the ribbon we were given prior to the beginning of the conference, and came forward to lay the ribbons transformed into stoles on a cradle representing the Christ child’s birth-bed.  This sacrament-like procession of the congregation forward symbolized our desire to give up those things that we brought with us that needed to be put aside in order to be fully present with Christ and one another during our time together.

Later, the ribbons were returned as we recorded three verbs and a noun that came to be our calling in response to the conference. My call was “to connect, to open, and to lead with integrity.” We passed in our stoles of calling and they were woven together as a tapestry of the church to frame the celebration of the Eucharist at the conclusion of the conference. During communion, we each took one of the ribbons to symbolize our connection to one another so we can pray for the one whose stole we now have.

Now away from the conference for a few days, I have a couple other reactions.

First is disappointment in who was not there. Even though there were 600 people in attendance, there were many people that I know that I had hoped to see.  I realize that we can’t take advantage of every opportunity that comes our way. But this event was unique because it is focused on the future, not on tactical program development or strategic organizational planning.  In other words, those who were not there were missed.

Second is the realization that if NEXT is to be a national movement in the Presbyterian Church USA, then it must also be a local and regional one.  When a local or regional opportunity to gather and contribute is offered, please participate. Take initiative to connect with others who came and are seeking for ways to sustain that which they gained in Charlotte.

Lastly, I am very grateful to all those who worked very hard to make the conference happen. Thank you, and may God bless your ministries and churches for the effort you gave to strengthening the wider church.


Ed-LIL2-2010-6Ed Brenegar is a life-long Presbyterian, a Tar Heel born and bred, teaching elder for three decades, a validated minister serving as a leadership consultant, a life / work transition coach, creator of The Stewardship of Gratitude strategy and The Circle of Impact Conversation Guides, occasional interim minister, honored blogger, speaker, and restless inquisitor of the impact of God’s grace in our time.

Find Ed online at the Leading Questions blog and At The Table of Thanks: Presbyterian Life & Mission.

 

Dis-Organize and Re-Organize, Repeat

by Jessica Tate
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One of the “universals” of community organizing is this: All organizing is dis-organizing and re-organizing.

That makes me tired just hearing it. I’m a “J” on the Myers-Briggs. I like closure, decisions, orderliness. I want systems in place that function smoothly. I prefer stability and predictability.

That is fine and good, except when the stable stable system isn’t working well. Faced with that reality, I’m learning to embrace the constant flux of disorganizing and reorganizing.

Here’s an example of how dis-organizing and re-organizing put new life into the deacons’ ministry at the church I served.

Years ago the deacons had divided the congregation up into nine geographic “parishes.” Two deacons were assigned to each parish and asked to be the primary caregiver for their parish. The theory of the system was that people who live near to one another have more opportunity to be involved in each other’s lives on a day to day basis….to literally be neighbors to each other. 

Over time, the congregation began to draw members from further away and the parish map started to annex territory into its parishes. It looked like a gerrymandered congressional map. Since deacons weren’t nominated to fill geographical positions, it usually didn’t work out that the two deacons assigned to the parish actually lived in that geographic area and even if they did, it was unlikely they necessarily knew the people in their zip code. It was usually the case that each pair of deacons ended up with a parish of 40-50 individuals or families, three-fourths of whom they did not know. 

The deacons tried valiantly to make the parishes work. They hosted potlucks and five people would come. They tried making cold calls to everyone in their parish to introduce themselves. They sent letters every year with their pictures and asked people to say hello on Sunday morning and to call if they needed care. 

It didn’t work. People in the congregation “fell through the cracks.” The deacons felt disconnected from the people for whom they were asked to give care. They often felt like “the last to know” when a baby was born or a surgery was scheduled. Though they were trying hard and wanted to succeed and felt called to this caregiving work, they continually felt like they could not do their job well. But we kept at it. The system was predictable and stable. It was easy to manage. It just didn’t work.

One night at the monthly meeting, when frustration at the parish system was being voiced yet again, one deacon said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” 

The room froze. A rebellion. 

“I’m tired of trying to find ways to get strangers to let me be their deacon,” she continued. “I’m just going to be the best deacon I can to everyone in my Sunday school class and everyone who sits near me in worship.”

A few seconds ticked by and then another voice said, “Well I’m in the choir, I can be their deacon.” And another, “I’ll take my circle and the quilting group.” Suddenly, everyone was volunteering to be the deacon for the people in the congregation to whom he or she was already connected.

“Wait, wait,” someone said. “We can’t just choose these various groups that we like. We’ll leave out some people that aren’t in any of these groups.” “Yeah,” another person said, “choosing our own parishes feel too much like a popularity contest. That’s not fair to everyone.”

The debate went back and forth for a while when at the end, they decided that it made a lot more sense to anchor caregiving ministry with organic relationships and small groups that exist in the church. Those relationships and groups already provide care and often have more insight into what’s going on in someone’s life. To make sure no one was missed or left out of the new “relational parishes,” they spent their next meeting going through the membership rolls of all 700 members and making sure every person had a deacon. 

Dividing the congregation up by relationships worked and it didn’t even take that long to go through the roles. Between the two parish deacons, the ratio of relationships flipped. The deacons now knew three-fourths of the people in their parish and had much less anxiety about trying to meet and get to know the few families or individuals they had not yet met. They still send out letters to let the congregation members know who their deacons are. And those cold calls? Most of them aren’t “cold” anymore. It’s a friend calling a friend to check-in, pray, and offer companionship for the journey.

There are some downsides. There are fewer instances of the completely random friendships developing in the congregation because of a random geographic sort. The deacons have to re-divide the list every year when new deacons come on and bring with them whole new sets of relationships. They can’t just play favorites — they have to hold themselves accountable to get to know the handful of people in their parish to whom they aren’t already connected. It’s more work administratively to figure out which parish someone is in…you can’t just tell by the zip code anymore. But in exchange for real care actually happening? In exchange for caregiving done with a joyful heart? I’ll take the chaos of dis-organizing and re-organizing over predictability and stability any day.


 Jessica is the Director of NEXT Church. Prior to this call she served as Associate Pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church and Co-Chair of the VOICE (a northern Virginia community organizing effort)

The Hour Has Come–A Sermon about NEXT Church

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

I was honored to preach at the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley at their stated meeting on May 9, 2013. It was a bit of an introduction to NEXT Church. I share it here in hopes that others will find it a helpful taste of what we’re about: 

 

The Hour Has Come

John 2:1-11 

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.

When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

 

Many preachers I know have a love-hate relationship with the gospel of John. The Jesus in John is just so muscular. I don’t mean that in the sense of brawny, I mean… he’s so capable. Confident. Free of angst. Every move he makes is deliberate. There is no sweating blood in the garden in John, no cry of anguish on the cross, no “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” (Yes, he does say “I’m thirsty,” but John is quick to assure us: He didn’t really need a drink; he just said that to fulfill the scriptures.)

This is a man who knows what he’s doing at every moment. And that’s a comforting thing. But it’s also what makes John’s Jesus really hard to relate to. Jesus is never, ever caught off guard.

Except… here. Here, in this story, we get a little bit of a different picture than the Jesus we meet in most of John. He seems caught a bit off guard. Plus, this is Jesus’ first sign, and it feels different from the others. There are seven in all, and in case you need a review, here they are in no particular order:

–       Walking on water.

–       Three healings.

–       Feeding 5,000 people with the contents of a child’s picnic.

–       Raising a guy from the dead.

–       And… restocking the bar at a wedding.

One of these signs is not like the other.

*          *          *

Jesus’ mother comes to him: “They have no more wine.” It’s a statement… that’s really a question. A request. And Jesus gets that, because he responds to what remains unsaid: No mother, that is not my concern. This is not mine to do.

Mary is saying to him, Look… here is an opportunity.

And Jesus responds: Really? Beverage service? For my inaugural sign? I don’t think so. Anyway, my hour has not yet come.

And she turns toward everyone else: Do what he tells you. And again there is a subtext: Yes, your hour has come. You are needed, right now, right here.

I love that Jesus’ first sign is one he never intended to make.

Jesus, it seems, had a plan. He had something in mind for his first sign. I’m not sure what he hoped his first sign would be, but water into wine wasn’t it. I bet it was something great. Maybe he was planning to heal an entire household in one fell swoop. Maybe a nice juicy exorcism. Later he would walk on water; maybe he was going to kick things off by flying through the air like Superman.

But instead he realizes that when it comes to sign #1… mother does know best. And of course, it’s not just about the wine—it’s about hospitality, it’s about providing something amazing for a whole village of people. It’s about God’s abundance. So yes, he’s in.

He looks around: What’s here that I can use? He scopes out his provisions like some kind of Palestinian MacGyver, and he finds 6 water jars.

Uh-oh. Six.

You remember the number 7 as a holy number in scripture. It is a number of perfection, completion. The seven days of creation. Seventh day as the day of rest. Seven signs in the gospel of John, seven churches in the book of Revelation.

But there are only 6 jars. Not good. In the ancient world, 6 was not a holy number. Far from it. Six was seen as a deficient number, imperfect, lacking. So we can see why Jesus would be reluctant to act—wine from seven jars would be a fabulously meaningful sign, dripping with significance. But the tools aren’t right. Things aren’t quite right. Six jars is somehow not enough.

I serve a small congregation in Northern Virginia that has grown from about 70 to about 85 in the last few years. We rejoice at this growth. And we are grateful to have a number of things going for us. We own our building; it’s not too big for us, not too overwhelming for the budget. We have a small endowment. We have great people and an excitement about the future.

And yet… and yet… even with all of those gifts, it is still hard to move forward.
It’s difficult to find the money to do what we want and need to do.
It’s tough to find the people power to move forward on projects and ministries that we feel passionate about.
It’s nearly impossible to figure out how to cut through the noise of the DC area so that our neighbors will know who we are and what we believe and why we’d like them to be a part of it.

It feels sometimes like a six jar situation.

And I wonder if you, too, look around your congregation, or your presbytery, and see six jars.
If we could just catch a break,
if we could just finish that camp,
if we could just get a few more young people to join our church,
if we could just hire a pastor—then, then, we could be the sign that we really want to be, the sign we’ve always dreamed of being.

Maybe you, like Jesus, feel like the timing is off. Jesus says his hour has not come, but for many of us, we feel like our hour is past. The statistics about membership decline in the PC(USA) are repeated so often that they have become a cliché. So many churches, here and around the country, are doing faithful ministry but without the means to call a pastor. Our buildings need maintenance. Meanwhile, a recent Barna survey of pastors and found that 90% of pastors said the ministry was completely different than what they thought it would be like before they entered the ministry.  And an astounding 70% say they have a lower self-image now than when they first started.

We’re discouraged.

We’re a day late and a jar short.

Unless.
Unless it’s not up to us to perform a sign, but simply to be the sign.
Unless we worship a God of possibility.
Unless John’s Jesus, our Jesus, can take our jars and look at the clock on the wall and say, “Forget what time it is. I can work with this.”

For the last couple of years I’ve been honored to be a part of the leadership of the NEXT Church. This is a movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA) that has been working to celebrate the places of health in the church and to support those places and help them propagate. The premise of NEXT Church is that the church is not dying. The church is changing, and changing quickly. And we are capable of change, but we can’t wait for Louisville or presbytery or our pastors to do it for us. We are the church.

Last year we hosted half a dozen regional events around the country where ruling elders and teaching elders came together not to transact business or kvetch about presbytery, or argue about ordination standards or gay marriage. They came together to share resources and inspiration. They formed relationships and partnerships.

NEXT Church recently had our national gathering in Charlotte, and we heard about churches that were on life support who turned their worship life around through improv and storytelling. We heard about a large church partnering with a small church through an adminstrative commission. We heard about congregations coming together through community organizing to transform entire neighborhoods.

You can hear these stories and many more on our website. What’s interesting is that many of these folks were reluctant to speak at the conference because they felt like what they had to offer wasn’t all that radical. I’m no expert, they would shrug. They might as well have said, “Eh, I’ve only got six jars.” But their testimonies set the place on fire.

When we offer up those jars… when we fill them to the brim, like those servants did… well, that’s when the good wine starts to flow.

*          *          *

We’ll never know what Jesus had in mind for his inaugural sign. But it’s significant to me that his first sign wasn’t a healing… it wasn’t an exorcism or a sermon or feeding 5,000 people. It wasn’t a life or death situation at all. The first sign of Jesus helped the hosts of the wedding save face, but otherwise it had very little utility. It was just an act of pure beauty. The party needs to go on, says Jesus. The love and fellowship should continue.

Water into wine is such a small sign. But maybe this sign is just the sign we need. Jean Varnier, founder of the L’Arche Community, reminds us: “A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness.”

We get mixed up sometimes. We want to save the church. We want to save the world! But maybe it’s enough to keep the feast going for as long as we can—not cautiously, not fearfully, but brimming over with hope and trust that the wine will flow as long as God means it to.

Maybe God is preparing us for something really, really—small:

Beauty, joy, community, friendship, hospitality.

I will drink to that. How about you?


MamdMaryAnn McKibben is co-chair of NEXT Church. She is a frequent speaker and workshop leader and author of Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time. She blogs at The Blue Room.

 

photo credit: Paco CT via photopin cc

Amos Disasa – Tuesday Closing Worship (Charlotte 2013)

Amos Disasa preaching at the closing worship service on Tuesday afternoon [Part of the 2013 NEXT Church National Gathering in Charlotte, NC.]

Ashley Goff – Liturgy as Improv

Ashley Goff on Liturgy as Improv [Part of the 2013 NEXT Church National Gathering in Charlotte, NC.]

Patrick Daymond – Relational Meetings (Charlotte 2013)

Patrick Daymond on One to One Meetings

[Part of the 2013 NEXT Church National Gathering in Charlotte, NC.]

Theresa Cho – Tuesday morning worship (Charlotte 2013)

Theresa Cho preaching in worship Tuesday morning

[Part of the 2013 NEXT Church National Gathering in Charlotte, NC.]

Steve Eason – Monday evening worship (Charlotte 2013)

Steve Eason preaching in worship Monday evening

[Part of the 2013 NEXT Church National Gathering in Charlotte, NC.]