Honestly, I don't know many Lutherans.

I have heard that they have a radio monopoly and suppress all dissent in Lake Wobegone (where all the children are above average).

There are more of them in the North Central states than where I was born (NYC) or served (Buffalo, Erie, Louisville, and Atlanta). There may be a huge colony of them in Nashville, but I am guessing not.

But, if these Missouri Synod Lutherans live out their new plan, there might be a lot more of them.

I am blessed to be a small part of their training.

I am speaking today and tomorrow on Facilitating Church Planting Movements at Concordia University. The meeting is sponsored by the Center for U.S. Missions. (You can subscribe to their newsletter here--it is well done and thought provoking.)

Their goal is to plant 2000 more churches by 2017, the 500th anniversary of the day some guy nailed something to a door in Germany.

The description of my session is as follows:

"Two days focused on how missional judicatories, churches and individuals can facilitate church planting movements in their sphere of influence. Through the Facilitating Church Planting Movements Training, participants are trained in moving from church addition, to multiplication, to movements. This seminar presents the latest research and helps us determine a missional future to plant churches across North America."

Now, I had to look up what judicatories were (since they were "missional," I figured I would like them), but the rest sounded good from the start.

Most of the materials I will present are materials that we developed at NAMB in the Church Planting Group and research we did at the Center for Missional Research. I will also present some of the research we completed for a Leadership Network study that will be released in the coming months.

I will post more later today on a thought provoking message one of their folks shared in chapel this morning.