Agile
Networked
Technology-based
Focusing on Christian practice
and small worshiping communities.
That’s my recipe for the Future of Church.
Here if you need me:
the Rev. Cathie Caimano
frcathie@freerangepriest.org
919.672.88822
So what does that mean?
Agile
How is your ministry sustainable, and how is it flexible? Able to meet the challenges you’re facing, experiment with solutions, and thrive.For example: Can you cut programs that aren’t thriving, let go of staff you cannot afford? More crucially: are you prepared to step out in faith to try a new way of being in ministry even though it’s likely to fail?
Networked
How are you connected with other faith communities, the community at large, other businesses, others in ministry, in ways that are mutually supportive.
For example: are you renting your space or using your property in both evangelical and financially supportive ways?
Are you contracting with other ministers for Christian formation (like Trexo), administration, or technology?Technology-based
I highly recommend (and can help you navigate) Planning Center for administration, organization, and communication and Substack for online engagement and building community (it’s time to get rid of your website and move it to Substack..).
How are you using technology natively - not as an add-on to the ministry you’re doing, but as the center of the ministry itself?Christian Practice
How can our communities spend more (most) of our time, energy, resources, etc on learning to be followers of Jesus, and sharing that with others?
Can we be brutally honest with ourselves about how much of our ministry actually revolves around growing in our own faith and sharing it with others? And can we be agile, network and technology-based enough to help make it more?Small worshiping communities
Small is where it’s at! People are longing for community, and community is in the DNA of the Christian faith. Small communities have the intimacy and space to really connect. They are also where it is members are truly lay ministry leaders, and we can foster their leadership and participation in worship as central to our life of faith.Most people who go to church spend most of their time there on Sunday morning. How do we move worship from being a ‘show’ that members attend to
equipping everyone for worship leadership and their part in the service.
Helping all members learn the basics of what we do in worship and why, making it easier to be part of worship, and most of all, truly connecting everyone to the power and presence of God.
Free Range Priest is the ‘umbrella’ ministry. It’s the WHY.
You’re here for the theory of where church is heading in the 21st century, beyond the crumbling institutional thinking and organizational systems that last thrived in the 1960s.
You want to confront the challenges - and see the what’s emerging in the Future of Church.
You’re seeing ‘the recipe’ as the way to move with hope into the future. You’re doing it yourself. You’re ready to see it in action.
Substack Seminary is the HOW.
You’re already living the ‘recipe’ for the Future of Church as a lay or ordained ministry.
You’re learning to thrive as a ‘Cage Free’ minister, or an entrepreneurial minister, or maybe you don’t know what to call the kind of ministry you do.
You might think you’re alone. But you’re not!
There are lots of‘us out here trying to figure it out.
Now we’re doing it together…
Trexo: a gym for your soul is the WHAT.
Trexo is the ‘recipe’ for the Future of Church in action!
It’s agile, networked, and technology-based.
It’s ancient Christian practice.
and it’s perfect for small worshiping communities.
It’s a gym for your soul.
St. Paul’s, Salisbury, NC is the WHERE.
St. Paul’s IS a small worshiping community.
Who works with me - a Free Range Priest.
They’re agile.
We worked out our own way of serving together! They’re deep in conversation about how to grow into the future.
They’re networked.
they serve closely with the Lutheran church down the block, and their members are part of Trexo.
They’re technology-based
they use Planning Center and their website is Substack.
They’re focused on Christian practice.
They’re the first Trexo ‘chapter’.
Free Range Priest is what was born when I started thinking: ‘there has to be a better way.’
A way of stepping outside (and alongside) of the old system and building new pathways towards sharing the Gospel.
A way to build the Future of Church by carrying the Scripture, sacraments, and traditions of the Christian faith in agile, networked, and technology-based systems.
A way to grow in our relationship with God by following the practices of the first Christians, and shedding a lot of the institutional baggage that is holding us back.
A way to stop worrying about bringing people to church - and start bringing church to people.
Free Range Priest.
Like the chicken?
YES!
Because it’s still ministry, it just tastes better.
