My friend David Arruda is a pastor in Massachusetts.  Many years ago, David was running several businesses at the same time.  He had gathered a management team of folks with a highly structured approach to business.  They constantly tried to slow down decisions, seeking to run every idea by senior management before people on the front lines could act.

One day, determined to teach another style of leadership, David took a marker and wrote the following words on a whiteboard: “Have fun.  Take risks.  Go fast.”  The next day, the mantra had caught on and he found it on whiteboards all over the building.  When David transitioned into pastoral ministry, he held on to this winning mantra, adding the words, “for Christ’s sake.”

Today I am working with David to develop a network of home fellowships sponsored by 14 mainline congregations south of Boston.  We are seeking to develop an approach to building new faith communities that serve and disciple persons who are largely beyond the reach of the staid, historic congregations who are sponsoring this effort.  We are borrowing ideas from other Christian groups and applying them in ways that are still very new for mainline protestants in the USA. (more…)

By John Michael De Marco | April 30, 2009 {1010}

With permission from e-Review Florida United Methodist News Service

NOTE: See related story, Florida Conference expands support to new churches

Two Florida Conference pastors have joined a nationwide effort to equip 1,000 people to launch 650 new United Methodist congregations by the end of 2012.

The Rev. Gary Shockley, former senior pastor of a new church start called HopeSpring United Methodist Church in Winter Garden, Fla., joined the Nashville-based Path 1 initiative recently as a new church strategist. Shockley is still living in Orlando, but commutes to Nashville once a month.

Path 1 is a response to the new church development goal “New Places for New People” — one of the 2008 General Conference’s four key areas of focus for the next quadrennium. The other three areas are developing principled Christian leaders, engaging in ministry with the poor, and fighting diseases of poverty, such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

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I was leading a a focus group with a United Church of Christ congregation talking about missional outreach when a middle-aged woman directly across the table from me blurted out, “I could never bring myself to invite anyone to church.  I am just not comfortable doing that!”

She dared to say out loud the oft unspoken (and not so mysterious) reason why so many churches do not reach their potential. She spoke for millions of American church-goers who feel that inviting people to church is an invasive and highly uncomfortable thing to do. However, in this case, the woman added that she shares in the church’s annual mission trip to help Mayan peasants in Guatemala - and that the experience each year is so life-changing that she cannot help but talk to her friends about it.  So she persuaded one of her friends to come on the trip this last year.  Her friend was similarly moved.  The friend made some great friendships with church members on the trip, and ended up joining the church.  I looked the woman across the table directly in the eyes and smiled, saying, “Guess who’s an evangelist and she doesn’t even know it?”  (more…)