Day 2 of Modular Training Part 2

Phew! Another day of hearing from some incredible minds and discussing ideas and dreams with other church planters. Personally, I am exhausted and I'm not sure I can go much longer sitting in chairs that clearly weren't made for pregnant people, but it has been worth it! We were up early again this morning and head deep in note taking by about 8:30 a.m. Pastor Bob Roberts shared with us again this morning, this time on the topic of "The Church that Changes Communities." David and I loved this lecture because that is exactly what we want to be. The last thing Columbia, SC needs is another church building that fills itself with white, middle-upper class Christians for two hours every Sunday to do the church thing. We desperately desire to establish a group of people, Christians and non-Christians who are genuinely and primarily concerned with the state of the community we live in. In fact, it might be more appropriate to say that we want to become community developers. Anyways, we loved this lecture.

The remainder of the day was spent hearing from a guy by the name of Todd MicMichen. Todd is a consultant for churches in crisis, but he is also a church planter and currently the lead pastor of The People's Church in Birmingham, AL. Side note- I love Birmingham - end side note. This man is incredibly gifted in decision-making and directing. He is very strategic and pragmatic. We loved hearing from him. David and I are praying that God will connect us with someone with his kind of decisiveness and pragmatism in Columbia as we continue to develop our vision and strategy for this church plant. We could really use this kind of giftedness.

After this, we did a few activities that involved each individual person developing a one page summary of what our church plant will look like in 3 years if everything goes perfectly. David and I presented separately and got some really great and affirming feedback from the group about our strategy. Little did we know that this was actually Northwood's way of having us present our Prospectuses? Prospecti? We had been dreading what we thought was going to be a formal presentation of our Church Planting Prospectus and it turned out to be a 3 minute explanation of a 10 minute sketch... ha!

At the end of the day, we all headed out to dinner at a local restaurant to unwind and relax... no church planting talk!