I had a conversation a few weeks back with Todd Hunter. Todd was recently elected bishop in the Anglican Church, AMiA. But not only is he a bishop in the Anglican Mission (AMiA) he is also a church planter. His church Holy Trinity recently had their launch (September I believe).

Todd also heads up a church planting network called C4SO :: Churches 4 the Sake of Others. Their goal is to plan 100 churches in the next 10 years in the Western United States.

Enough info, our conversation was great and I would like to share and get some of your thoughts.

One of things that Todd said that particularly peak my interested was his thoughts on where your call comes from. He said that a church planters call typically come from one of three places;

.:: Demographic
.:: Geographic
.:: Psychographic

My best understand of these categories is as follows ::
.:: The demographic call is one that is based on a people group. i.e. young adults, young families, men 25-35, etc. A certain “demographic of people”.
.:: Geographic is pretty easy. You are called to a particular location. Maybe a city or even a certain part of a city, i.e. urban, suburban, etc.
.:: Psychographic was a new word to me but to my best understand it’s a certain type of person, a certain “psychology”. i.e. unchurched; people who have never done the church thing, disgruntle with church; people who are pissed at church and don’t care for Christians, etc. Maybe a religious background, or people with a certain world view would fit into this category?

Those were the three categories that Todd tossed out. In our conversation I was honest with Todd and told him that none of those really resonated with me. For me it’s more of community and team calling. My calling seems to be connected to where a core of people will be and where a team of leaders might be found. I might use / make up the word, relationographic; where there are relationships established and a community is just waiting to burst through the cracks.

Todd was very gracious as i tried to explained to him what this meant for me.

From the beginning I have know I wanted to and was called to plant a community with a community / a team of people. I have never wanted to do on my own and I have never wanted to be the “figure head” or “personality” of the community. A lot of my reason for waiting to actually do something has been based on my desire for the right relationships to happen. There are a few different relationship that might be brewing as the fertilizer  for a community (running with the planting metaphor). I’m praying about that.

But my question for you is what do you think about these categories?
What do you think about my addition?
How were you called? And would your call fit into one of these categories?

I would really love to hear what you think.

Grace and Peace
Erik