The Mainline church is praying that God sends missionaries – visionaries – Pastors with Vision raised up by God… to save the dying church…

What would happen if God answered this request (and I think He has…)

As a non-ordained pastor I have found it difficult in obtaining support from clergy because they felt that I was not properly trained and therefore the return on kingdom investment would be non-existent… or worse that I may change the status quo…

There’s nothing closed minded about shunning ideas that make you scared or uncomfortable… (joke)

Investigating the early circuit riders experiences, I found something interesting:

1. People are willing to travel farther now to go to church – 5 miles or more now – this is due to transportation being so readily available (ie we have 150 plus horses just a few feet from our doors after all… )

a. What would happen if we merged churches together? Pastors with 1 gift with pastors with another… and why are churches so allergic to this? This save my pulpit and save my pew mentality is not always Kingdom based…

2. The early circuits were really church plants - it was not really about trying to revive dying or old congregations…

3. Circuit riders – many were lucky enough to have anything more than just a grade school education…

a. So they (some) did not know Hebrew

b. They (some) did not know Greek

c. Hermeneutics would be something that sounded like a New World Disease to many of these guys

d. Eschatology – many I bet thought they were living in the final days – and many I bet thought there were many more to come…

4. Circuit riders generally spoke without notes – used standard scripture texts – but memorized the Gospel – they knew it inside and out… They did not memorize the entire Bible- but were far from Biblically Illiterate (compared to many of today’s clergy)

5. Circuit riders preached in schools – houses – pubs – or even outside –it was rare they would actually get to speak in a church setting…

a. What would happen if we did this ? what would happen if we went to where people are vs. asking them to come in to what we feel is a sanctuary (for many the pub, etc is their safety place)

6. Circuit riders usually would preach daily – moving from town to town – and sometimes speak more than 1 time per day even.

Do you think its fair to say … The Emerging Church – Post Modern – whatever you want to call it - its leaders are today’s circuit riders…

These are the missionaries of today