Estuary as Churches Giving Space for Meaningful Conversation

What is Estuary and how it is Developing

Today's video is a model Estuary meeting. The Estuary project grew out of two things: the realization of my @jordanbpeterson that there was a hunger for meaningful conversation and the need of the church to give space for it.

In January 2018 I was blindsided by the realization that I could far better gather people for meaningful conversation than how many other dippy church "outreach" efforts like VBS, hot dogs or candy.

Leaders of the Sacramento Jordan Peterson meetup eventually put together a Discord server to facilitate meaningful conversations in places where people didn't have a stable local conversation group. https://discord.gg/feUJvabj

In time the regulars grew into sort of a friendship group (which as any pastor knows is small group evolution) and needed a better structure. A former @CRCNA pastor of mine and I collaborated to develop what I call The Estuary Protocol.

We developed it partly from the decision to first develop leaders for these Estuary groups. He started the Estuary Host Support Network which has been quietly meeting for almost a year.

John Van Donk has been working with three groups made up with people from around the world. Here is the story of the German Estuary.

We're now entering a new stage where many of those who have been in the Estuary Host Support Network are launching local groups and we hope to add more Estuary Host Support Groups to train new leaders.

Many ask about the relationship between Estuary and Church. Estuary is downstream from church. It isn’t church. It facilitates a needed function churches struggle with. This part of the conversation addresses it. Dave is a Mennonite missionary in Germany.

If you’d like to get involved with the Estuary Host Support Network here is a link https://sites.google.com/view/estuaryhubcontent/home