pat loughery

I’m having an IM conversation with my neice. She’s 22 and a budding evangelist (always dragging friends along to the stuff she’s doing). She’s great – twice now she’s taken missing (insert your own term here) friends to Vineyard emerging leader gatherings, which pretty much presume leadership and Christian faith, though they’re certainly wide open for anybody.

She’s taking another friend to a college ministry in the University of Washington area tonight. We were looking at the schedule of events for the church that hosts that event, and there’s 50 (literally, 50) events on TODAY’s calendar.

Here’s a nice part of that thread:

Pat says:
they have like 3.87 billion things happening tonight though don’t they?
Jen says:
definitely
Jen says:
and like 7.98 billion for today
Pat says:
yeah, that’s either scary or amazing. I haven’t decided.
Jen says:
Just wait, you’ll be that busy!
Pat says:
I sorta doubt we ever get that massive. That chruch has more people in it thatn North Bend has, I think. Plus I’d reather send out more church plants from within us, than keeping them all for ourselves..
Jen says:
Yes, I hear that.
Jen says:
but, imagine the difference you could make if you had one church that was able to hit so many ideas in such a focused way
Jen says:
and seperated… my word choice isn’t that great today, you get the idea?
Pat says:
true, i undestand that too. Big churches can certainly meet a lot of very specific needs.
Pat says:
it’s hard to mainain a sense of community and family though. that’s the hard thing to balance.
Jen says:
there you go, that’s what I was trying to say!
Jen says:
but you become a family within each group
Jen says:
and they become their own community, it’s almost like starting more small churches
Jen says:
you’re building people from small groups into a larger community
Pat says:
Exactly. that’s why small groups are hugely important – whether that’s a home group, or support group, or alpha, or knitting group or whatever.
Pat says:
you’re good at this stuff! most folks don’t grasp that part.
Jen says:
for sure, just like friendships, you need the small, super strong ones in order for people to be able to have the confidence to spread into larger ones

I’m so proud of her, hearing that coming from her. And I know that we’re on the right track as a church.