VCP Conference Comes to an End

I posted many of my thoughts coming out of the Vital Church Planting Conference over on my Mission Church Toronto Blog. One of the things I haven't unpacked yet in either blog was the workshop presented by one of the pastors (Paul Morris) of The Meeting House.
Bruxy Cavey, Teaching Pastor of The Meeting House

The Meeting House is a non-traditional church that has experienced explosive growth in Southern Ontario. They are based in Oakville, but are most famous for gathering in movie theaters all over the GTA where the Oakville sermon/teaching is presented live via satellite. They are focused on people for whom a traditional Sunday Service is irrelevant and unappealing. But don't underestimate how successful a relatively simple formula can be: their Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) is just shy of 6,000 (yes, six-thousand) in 2008 and they've been growing at a rate of 35% per year.

The most telling thing for me that Paul Morris told us is that they know their version of church has a self life. The question is not whether the Meeting House will plateau and decline, but when. They've decided that they want to be able to embrace their death when it comes, so they unafraid of talking about it now. They see this way of doing church as simply a tool which they will freely abandon when it ceases to work. Isn't that striking?

Anyway, the conference gave me a lot to think and pray about...

-t