Kairos Planters at Exponential West 1014

Last week a good Kairos crew of staff and planters spent the week together at the Exponential West planters' conference hosted by the Saddleback church. We were treated to a feast of presentations and classes on evangelism.

After Exponential we took a few days together at Manhattan Beach in a men's retreat. We got to pray, play, eat, talk, walk, bicycle and play on the beach together. It was a great time of refreshment.

Exponential Reflections

Here are a few key nuggets from Exponential:

• Ed Stetzer: No real researcher believes Christianity is dying in America. However, there is a radical shift of influence. Where in the 20th century non-believers looked towards Christians for influence in the 21st century they are looking towards the cultural  for influence. The 50% of Americans who are non-practicing religious  are moving into the category "nones," not having faith.
• Jeff Vanderstelt: "People don't know how to share the gospel with unbelievers because they don't know how to share Jesus with each other. " 
• Alex Absalom: "Discipleship is imitation more than information." 
• Hugh Halter: "Evangelism is changing the assumptions people have about us and God."
• Shawn Lovejoy: "Becoming missional is moving people along the discipleship journey to become a disciple making people." 
• Larry Osburn: "Come and See evangelism (inviting people to church) works. It: 1) lets people see how Christians worship and work, 2) provides instant and built-in followup and 3) everyone can do it