I spent last weekend with a group of believers planting a church in Richmond, VA. I met them after they spent the morning planting trees in support of a Richmond Parks and Rec initiative. Two groups are cooperating for the plant - one from New Life Christian Fellowship in Blacksburg, VA, home of Virginia Tech and the other from Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis, MD. The partnership was born when Chris Backert from New Life Christian Fellowship met Brian Hopper through service on the board of Ecclesia, a church planting network. Lead pastor Brian Hopper asked me to present an overview of why its so important to understand the culture in order to discern God's unique vision for this local body.

I outlined the three elements necessary for a local church vision - the unchangeable Mission of making disciples, the non-negotiable Message of the gospel and the one element that changes, the culture, or Market in my alliterated presentation. I used the word even though I hate it when applied to the church because it has so much baggage.

I thought it might be interesting to try a new web tool I discovered and upload my presentation . In case you're interested in posting your own presentation, I used a great web tool at  the Slide Share web site.

The "equations" on the "Assumptions" slide are meant to show what happens if you leave out any part of the equation for the church's vision. I will meet with them in a few weeks to train the team in the practical exercises for exegeting the culture. I'm looking forward to it - I learned as much as I taught - it was great!