What are creative ministers thinking about these days?

I returned from UNCO (short for Unconference), an open-space incubator for churches. We wanted a place where creative ministries would be celebrated and supported, and it’s working. We have grown from two new ministries to over twenty. It’s a brain trust for starting progressive communities and sustaining traditional ones. The break-out groups are always interesting, because they give us a taste of what young(ish) ministers struggle with and what they’re excited about. We have gatherings on the East and West Coast. (West will be meeting in October and registration is open for it.) This is the fifth year that we have gathered.

Some things—like bivocational pastors, bivocational churches, or how to close a church—come up every year. It’s to the point that those subjects have resident experts on which we call. A few of the other things that we talked about were:

Arts Uncollective: Art does not often happen in a vacuum. We all need love, support, deadlines, readers, editing and criticism. As church leaders, we’re engaged in artistic endeavors all the time—preaching, writing, creating music, and constructing prayer stations. But there are often more things that we wish we could do. What about making films? Creating fiction? Gaming? Acting? Painting? We all had something that we loved to do, but don’t have the space to nurture our art. This group will meet on-line through out the year help us to support one another in our endeavors.