Saturday, February 16, 2013

Stirrings among the Lutherans

Something is afoot in my tribe. (ELCA Lutherans)

I've been keeping my ear to the ground for people interested in things like house church and discipleship movements since before I started this blog back in 2007. Found lots of people out there and a lot of ferment, but among my tribe the connections were few and far between so I was mostly sowing seeds it seems.  As of today, it seems to be different.

First, a post in an ELCA clergy group on Facebook yesterday asked if anyone was looking at house church model for ministry.  This thread became very active with quite a number of people joining in.  It led right away to talk of extended conversations and networking, and to the formation of a new FB group this afternoon that already has 31 members eager to continue the conversation .  That is a lot of (mostly) Lutheran clergy types hot for a house church conversation!  I've not seen anything like it before.

Second, a FB group formed some weeks ago for ELCA folks who were active or interested in using the 3dm approach to discipleship. That group has 132 people in it, predominantly clergy as far as I can tell.  The energy building in that conversation led to a suggestion that people gather in Florida at the Exponential Conference to have some conversation about 3dm discipleship in our Lutheran context.  I jumped right on that and thought maybe there would be another 5 or so that might go for it as well.  I just learned today that there are 23 people planning to convene for this conversation!

Looks like the Spirit may be up to something.  Stay tuned.

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