I am a church planter. I am a church planter now, in this time, and I deeply desire to form a community of faith in which people are drawn into relationship with God and others – in which we will all be transformed into His image in the best way possible. I, like many others, have seen and experienced the relative inability, holistically, of present "church" forms to facilitate this well (yeah, yeah, I know it's not about "forms"). So, we're out here doing something different, sometimes radically different – getting called names, not being recognized as legitimate, being frustrated, and at times depressed – isolated – all that.

I think I went there for fellowship (the fellowship of suffering?), for encouragement, and for confirmation. Maybe we were confused about what comes next and we wanted help figuring it out. Maybe some wanted patterns to follow (they didn't get that by the way). I can only tell you what I thought, what I went through. Perhaps some others shared these thoughts and experiences.

In the past year I have been connecting with people through the internet in one way or another. I read their blog. They read mine. They find our community's website and e-mail me, then a relationship ensues. A bunch of those folks were going to be there and I wanted to "meet" and talk to them. I was more excited about this aspect than anything. That did happen. It was very cool to hang out with these people who are seeing, hearing, and trying to do the same things. I wish there would've been more time for that actually. The schedule was pretty tight so hang time was a bit limited (that's a tiny critique).

What happened there was a very good thing. I loved that there were no more than 200 people at this thing. It made for a very close experience – more intimate. It was on a very "real" level. Nobody seemed all freaked out about "stuff." There was no speaker/big-shot segregation either. I'm so glad we're realizing that the time for that crap is over. I honor the humility of all those guys (the icons), just being there with everyone like the normal people that they are.

What happened? What was said and what did I think about it? I won't try to give a total play by play. I didn't see the whole "game." I'm only me so that's what you'll get I suppose. I'll try to include some of my thoughts and notes that I took as I was reacting to things. I put some of this stuff on my blog while I was there but I'll try and boil it down here.

I came in the building and as I was picking up my back stage pass style nametag, I smelled incense. Not the Gonesh, jasmine, hide your pot smoking, head shop smell, but the real deal. My Catholic past came up into my nose – frankincense and myrrh, etc. I heard chanting and walked in to find that we were basically having a rather "high" mass - at least the eucharistic portion - vestments, swinging the censor, common cup communion. It was all right - a little bit of "playing Catholic," which was OK. I'm sure a good many people there, I heard so, had never experienced anything like that.

Then Brian McLaren talked about being "apprentices to Jesus." He, along with most everyone else there, was suggesting we re-think altogether what it means to be a Christian – that perhaps the term "Christian" needs to be replaced with apprentice to or follower of Christ. Todd Hunter and Chuck Smith Jr. followed suit with talks that emphasized much the same theological notions. They stirred some feathers for me. I liked it. It was challenging to our present views in some sectors of Christianity. They were speaking to the notion of "say a prayer, your sins are forgiven, you're going to heaven, yeah!" – that this is not really a legitimate way to look at what a "Christian" is. They talked more stepping into the journey and walking the walk – studying under the Master so that He rubs off on us and we become like Him.

I like the process thing. I understand that. We are on a journey to full oneness with God - this is a long haul thing, not a one second prayer deal. I wonder, though, where the notion comes from that MOST Christians think in the way they seem to want to jettison. I haven't seen this. I personally come from a Catholic background where these process ideas are common. I also have seen lots of Christians who focus more on the doing than on the being so that it all becomes about whether or not we are imitating Jesus at every turn. That, I think, is not good.

I don't really think that's what they were saying, but I fear that if we don't get down into the underneath of what's happening on the invisible spiritual level, things could possibly degenerate to that easy common denominator - behavior. It can sound like "what would Jesus do?" is all there is to it - just follow His example. We have to start talking about mystical union as well, as that which makes us able to walk the journey. I agree it's more than spouting some prayer so you can go to heaven. It's not about going to heaven. I see that. It's about being re-created into the kind of people He created us to be in the first place - the kind of person Jesus was and is. As Todd Hunter said, "Jesus is humanity as it was intended to be." These things were the underlying theology of the conference. The ghost of Dallas Willard was all over the place I think.

Chuck Smith Jr. talked about community – that we should create an environments that cultivate it. He brought into question what we have done in the past in the name of community. Are we using small groups to control people? Are we simply building new volunteers to serve the institution? And he went and said that it was basically untrustworthy to use the word community to promote church growth - wow! Community is messy, it doesn't always feel good or look good to the individual, and we must be committed for the long term in order to make it really happen. He told a great story of an architect who designed no sidewalks for a new building complex. He built them a year later on the paths that people wore into the grass. Community is organic. We must observe what's going on and move there. He also said something later that jumped out at me concerning "forms" – "if we change forms and don't change paradigms, we will be ineffective."

There were workshops and panel discussions and music too – all very good. The panel on e-tools was very interesting with Spencer Burke, Len Sweet, Andrew Careaga, and Randy Jumper – talking about how to use the internet for the kingdom. It got a little hairy as some people in the audience seemed to be concerned about replacing "real" community with the online variety. "Can you have real community built online?" "Can 'church' happen through the internet?" The answers weren't always clear, but the consensus seemed to rule out exclusive online church in favor of the face to face kind with the added bonus of really connecting with people via the internet as well.

Andrew Jones and Leonard Sweet did a panel discussion on glolocalization – talked about the fact that "the kingdom" is bigger than "the church" and that the Holy Spirit works outside the church. Some thought it sounded as if "the church" was being dissed. I think there may have been more than one definition of church going on there. Here is my perspective on the kingdom/church thing: If we are going to redefine what we call "church" then we need to redefine how we talk about church. So, in the accurate definition of church, is it still not a good thing? It seems to me, in this accurate view, that WE are the church - that we who are "in Him" are that new entity. And this, to me, is where I see that that term "the kingdom" and that term "the church" become synonymous. If we are "alive in the kingdom" then we are a "part of the church" and so in order to enter the life of God's kingdom, one must enter the church, and as we simply are the church where we are, we infect the cultures in which we live with the living kingdom of God."

Workshops: Todd Hunter = Missional communities instead of "churches" that people join – being a group of people on a journey together. He also talked about going back to an understanding of "pastor" as spiritual director – one who is there to help holistically form those in the community. He also encouraged us to not quench the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, there are excesses and stupid things but we cannot live and do effectively in the kingdom what we need to do without Him. Here's the quote "You cannot do what you need to do while being suspicious of the Holy Spirit." Don't use the excesses of others as an excuse.

Doug Pagitt = Christian leadership. A new metaphor - The Organic Gardener - thinks about all things that naturally produces a good garden - they facilitate the growth - air, weather, soil - balance between letting & intentionality. This is the best metaphor of "church" leadership I think I may have ever heard.

Andrew Jones = Talked about three structures - ecclesiastic, monastic, and apostolic. We've been in the ecclesiastic – now it seems the monastic form is coming back; monastic orders becoming prevalent in evangelical circles; learning once again from Catholic and Orthodox arenas. We now go more on pilgrimage rather than mission trips. The apostolic is coming – church on the move – communities constantly moving around on pilgrimage. Significantly also he said that building churches around culture or age is not stable; rather, they should be built around relationships. The kingdom is about making friends, telling stories, throwing parties, and giving gifts. Andrew is very cool and I'm so glad he didn't get a mullet!