“What if existing churches, which are often resource-rich but becoming people-poor, linked themselves up with church planting movements and neighborhood confluences, which are often people-rich but resource poor? The result? New life for existing congregation, breathing space for ministry startups, and a lit fuse for expanding Kingdom influence in a local context. ”
In the current context, mainline denominational congregations and emerging church plants and missional efforts struggle to survive and thrive. Often the driving issue is the cost and availability of ministry spaces and resources like staff and administrative support. Older congregations have them but struggle to keep them. Newer congregations and missional efforts don’t have them but eventually need them. This project will attempt to bring together wisdom and practical insights from new missional trends in North American ecclesiology, best practices in effective church planting, and innovations from the private sector in shared and collaborative work spaces or “hubs.” The result will be a roadmap mission-minded congregations can use to shift from single-congregation/single-site churches to mission hubs for multiple Christian communities and neighborhood confluences.