a beautiful mess

recently became aware of shannon o’dell and his site, breakingallthrurals.com. i quite much enjoy seeing creativity at work in the kingdom.

anyways. he recently tweeted,

created a new word today for transitioning and planting a church at the same time…PLANSITIONING…let me know if you already created it.

well. i have not already created it. but i have been dreaming of a variant of said created word, which is probably not a first either, but here goes:

grafting. to unite (a shoot or bud) with a growing plant by insertion or by placing in close contact.

right? so. rather than plant or start a local church in a city where there is likely already a local church meeting – which in some respects would be far easier – you would seek to graft a local church into an existing on*.

obviously, many obstacles would emerge. leadership issues, priorities of two or more groups, histories and traditions merging with hopes of different generations and backgrounds…but are these not already found in a local church pressing into the abundant life anyway? are these not the very real and needed points of friction which create a furious love between the communitas and for the community at large?

what do you think? have you been a part of such a grafting or plansitioning or something else similar? or something else altogether different?

*i am not against planting a local church – but i do think it’s a valid endeavor to question what is seemingly becoming a default answer for small groups or pastors wanting to “start a (local) church.”