I’m on a plane, heading back home from the Exponential church planting conference in Orlando. A very cool time, once again, and we had tons of people stop by our Converge Church Planting booth to say hi (and also to register for the free 7-day beach vacation giveaway!)
One of my jobs at Exponential this year was to coordinate, with Steve Pike of the Assemblies of God, the denomination leaders’ best-practices pre-conference. It went well, with 70+ leaders in attendance. I want to share with you what I told those leaders as we concluded our time.
I said, “You all have too much ‘space debris’ in your heads.” Of course, I was analogizing. According to NASA, there are about 21,000 pieces of manmade pieces of stuff at least 10 centimeters in diameter floating out there in space. Manmade stuff. Pieces of crashed satellites, stuff like that. Somebody in the space community is trying to keep their eyes on that. Good for them.
But not good for those denomination leaders, and not good you. In our Christian and church planting subculture, there are also tons of space debris. Too many new ideas for you to keep track of. Too many mind-bending paradigms for you to absorb. Too many cool ideas for you to stay cool with. You need to clear your head.
Here is my advice. Be a life-long learner, but stay focused on a few good things. I said to the gathering, “Your heads are abuzz, and some of you are intimidated. Don’t be. I would rather have you choose a few good systems than too many great ones. A good system committed to is better than a great system that knocks you off course. Do a few things well, and within two years you’ll have all the momentum you need.”
I hope that helps you. And I hope it doesn’t bend your mind too much. Here’s a text: “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the[a] paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.” (Proverbs 4:25-26.) God bless you as you do.
