Contact:

josh@joshhhunt.com

575.650.4564

If I were in charge of the denomination

If I were given the job of reinventing the denomination, I would start with this reality. I would try to connect churches—starting with the pastors—with as much in common as is possible.

I hunger for fellowship with pastors who pastor churches like mine. I live in a different world than the multi-staff pastor. I hunger for fellowship with pastors who pastor churches that are very small, old, in the country, and the pastor serves in a very part-time capacity. I want to talk to pastors who are contentedly discontent. That is, they are happy with their church, and love her the way she is. But there is something in them that longs for God to do a new thing in their church. They long to see God do something amazing in their church. I’d like to fellowship with some pastors like that.

I am not as eager to fellowship with pastors who:

• Love their little church just the way it is and never want it to change.
• Secretly think Rick Warren is the anti-Christ.
• Don’t like Chris Tomlin.
• Pastor huge churches.
• Pastor inner city churches.
• Live in a house next to the church.
• Work full time as pastor.

If I worked for a state convention, I would try to get all of the churches that are similar to mine in one Facebook group. I would try to get all the churches in some kind of group that matched their general demographic makeup. I would get all the multi-staff churches together. All the downtown, inner-city churches together. All the midsize country churches together, and so forth. I would even try to subdivide according to style. There are churches that are old-fashioned churches that are learning from Saddleback and Willow Creek, and there are churches that hate Saddleback and Willow Creek. I would try to have a group for each one. Then, I would have a completely separate group for the brand-new churches that really are like Saddleback and Willow Creek. And, there is another generation of churches—young churches with young pastors who don’t much care for Saddleback and Willow Creek. For them, Saddleback and Willow Creek are old-fashioned. I would want to get a group for each one.

Facebook groups might not be the best technology, or the only technology. Google has a free service that is similar to Facebook called Google plus. It includes a video conferencing component called Google hangouts. Using this free service, 10 or so pastors could get together online and hang out. They can actually see each other, and swap stories. In this way pastors that are geographically separated but philosophically in tune could fellowship together. What a time to be alive!

Of course, you don’t have to wait for a denominational agency to set this up. It is likely you know a few pastors with whom you have a good deal of rapport. Start a group. Hang out on Google hangouts. Invite friends. If the group gets too large—let’s all pray that it does—you can divide the group. You might divide the smaller churches into one group, and the larger ones in another. Or, you could divide by geography so that there could be face-to-face meetings from time to time. Or there might be a philosophy of ministry division that would make more sense.