what if?

Flyers, videos, people, posters, and display tables filled with books, piles and piles of books. Welcome to the world of church conferences. This week I am attending "Exponential" a conference that is geared toward church planting and new churches.

Upon registration I was given a the typical bag full of "stuff" that you receive at these sort of things. In that bag were two important items, my badge for the conference and the schedule of events for the next four days. Also in that bag were no less than 32 pieces of advertising from people trying to peddle their wares to the newest "up and coming" church leaders. I have to admit that some of this stuff is pretty slick. From the "Brown Cow" creative design flyer to ELI (emerging leadership initiative) whose flyer highlights a dude who looks like he could be straight out of the next power pop band and a cool girl with more ink than kinkos, both next to the line - "are you one of these leaders?"

Don't get me wrong, I know this is going to be a great conference and I believe that God is going to teach me things and speak to me while I am here, in fact that process has already begun. However, I do find myself asking questions like "how did the apostle Paul and others ever make it?" I mean, what did people do when they were trying to start churches before there were things like "Church in a box" (yes that was a real display I saw) and these great flyers that promise to show you how to increase attendance at your church if you will simply stop by their booth.

I don't know how Paul and Timothy did it. It must have been pretty tough to have nothing more than God's Word to guide them! Forgive my sarcasm but I do find it humourous to see so much being peddled, even at a conference like this. Then again, should we be surprised? We do live in a consumer based society and church leaders are the consumers and this stuff is apparently necessary to start the next best thing on the block.

What if we didn't need to be the next best thing? What if it didn't matter how cool we were? What if people were more important than processes and communities more important than cathedrals? What if all we had was Jesus? Would that be enough?

Just something to ponder...