Last night (the first night back after our Nati weekend) I have "Leadership Training" for our small group ministry. We had some great conversation about community, relationships and, as Todd Hunter says, leading someone who should be following someone else. It was especially interesting because the pastor was there the whole time. I am teaching missional, relational principles that are totally different than what the church currently does. The leaders get it, and that is heartening.

I had an interesting conversation with the pastor after the meeting about our weekend adventure. As I told him about intentional community and the communal leadership that I saw modeled I could sense the walls going up. He warned me about leaders that are not "properly trained" and I reminded him of the many abuses that "properly trained" pastors have caused. I told him that I thought that there was a move of God going on in the house churches and his comment was "The institutional church will catch on in about 20 years." He is probably right, and that will probably be too late....

On another note, my "stay-at-home dad" status allowed me to go on my daughters field trip to Cahokia mounds and the Lewis and Clark Visitation Center (Unfortuately they were not available to talk to us). It is interesting to me that this group of Indians had a bigger city than any European city of the time. It's also interesting that they disappeared without a trace.