A Few highlights of the last couple of days:

Todd Hunter Phone Call.

For those of you who don’t know who Todd Hunter is, he is one of my spiritual heroes (http://www.toddhunter.org). So a couple of weeks ago I emailed Todd and asked him some questions about the “emerging church.” He said that he would like to set up a time to talk to me on the phone and so yesterday was that day. It was really cool. He is a fountain of knowledge. Todd used to be the president of Vineyard Churches of America and is currently the President of Alpha Courses USA.

We talked about why churches that are “emergent” aren’t growing. He was telling me that of all the churches that are “emergent” that most are not growing by conversion….Very interesting because I thought that that was one of the goals of the “emergent” church movement. Doing church differently does not interest me at all….Doing church that is effective to reaching our culture that interests me. We also talked about church discipline in the context of the “emergent” church. And finally he basically told me to forget emergent or not emergent just do what God tells me. Advise that God himself gave me from the beginning and something I have really been trying to do from the get go. Talking with Todd was really encouraging. To be completely honest I was hoping he would say something like, “Man Chris, you seem to really have it all together and sound like you are doing something really cool…Let me be your mentor…Call me every 2 days and tell me what is going on with your church.” Of course he didn’t because it was a 10 minute phone call. But I do now have Todd Hunter’s Cell Phone number!

In other news…


Our second team meeting for the Wallingford Church Plant was AMAZING! Our team is incredibly diverse yet there is a ton of like thinking and unity. We talked about the name (which we still don’t have but I am toying around with Etumos). We did a community study of several verses in Matthew that talk about what the church is supposed to be or what Christ’s mission was and it was really enlightening. Very cool stuff when the Holy Spirit speaks through a collective voice. We ended with taking communion and I think it was one of the most poignant communion times I have ever been a part of. I know I may feel this way because it is new and all but I really feel like God definitely has his hand on this church. He is going to use it to change people’s lives. The coolest part is that it has almost nothing to do with any individual including myself. I really LOVE our team. If you are reading this PRAY FOR US!

Well that is the update…For the Chris Cochran blog…I’m Chris Cochran