In today’s surfing, I am encouraged that I am not alone. Catch of the day: emerging church. A church that’s really striving to do it: Church of the Apostles. I especially like the way they describe their “home churches”: like the cell church model, it’s the center of who they are, but unlike the cell church model, they do not prescribe much beyond that.

I think a big challenge of postmodern leadership is to point to a clear vision, while at the same time making sure that vision describes the “what,” but not the “how.” In fact, the flexibility of the “how” is a key element of the “what.” I must learn to be less rigid about the way things actually take shape, ride the wind, and enjoy the ride.

Another find from “what is church?”: a group called mission242 that is a home group from another Vineyard in Florida that has evolved into a weekly alternative worship service.

I read an ooze article about visiting a church that had all the cool postmodern trappings on the outside, but really wasn’t on the inside. There are many churches that try to adopt “it” (whatever it happens to be at the time) in order to attract “them.” But the Incarnation shows us God’s plan: to reach them, you must enter their world and become of them. And goodness, if there’s one trait of postmoderns, it’s that they see through phoniness.

In some ways, City Vineyard is the opposite: we’re somewhat “un-cool” on the outside, but have an attitude that this postmodern at least finds refreshing, welcoming and genuine. Still, I think it would be nice to see changes in the externals — and we’re starting to. Now that we have our own place, we’ve got art on the walls, and Dave has started to experiment with video (though if we’re going to show movie clips, we really need to get a church video license).

But what about exploring other expressions of worship altogether?

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