Project Isaiah 43

It is now time to experiment!  It is time for a playfulness within the Spirit to try new things, engage different paradigms and models, and experiment with structure all for the sake of God’s mission in the world: that the love of Jesus might be known.

Conference Events Summary

We are grateful for your participation in the Project Isaiah 43 Events. Here is a link to the full narrative summary of the conference events.
At our Project Isaiah 43 conference events, we “harvested” nearly 700 sticky notes with key ideas and thoughts from the conversations. These were all entered in a Miro board and then grouped to identify common themes for the narrative summary. You can view the Miro board here:

Working Hypothesis

​We truly believe that God is up to something in Christ’s church – that there is a reforming in the making. Our working hypothesis is that congregations are being called together in groups of 4-6 to be the Body of Christ together. These consortiums or collaboratives of congregations would have a shared mission and vision within their communities. They would be served by a staff of at least 2 pastors and potentially a deacon who would help shepherd the life of the consortium. Each congregation would maintain their own building, their own worship – and be led at least in part by a trained lay minister who could effectively and soundly lead worship when one of the pastors or the deacon could not be present.

SYNOD ASSEMBLY Summary

The Project Isaiah 43 conversations begun at the conference events continued during the Synod Assembly on June 1, 2024. As the working hypothesis continued to evolve and the synod staff worked to determine what may be needed to put the hypothesis into action, it was determined that the participants at the Synod Assembly could help continue the conversation from two perspectives. The first would be in identifying the obstacles to establishing a collaborative of congregations. The second was in considering the possibilities that might come from such collaboratives and how people saw the Holy Spirit moving in this proposal for a new model for ministry.