River Tree Church of Lincoln, Nebraska, bestowed with the "Church Planter of the Year Award" from the Evangelical Free Church of America, is a community of "god seekers, god doubters, and god followers." Senior and Founding Pastor Greg Loy did manage to bypass doubt long enough to tell us that "a thought" told him to plant a church:

"On August 9, 2001, I was attending the Willow Creek Leadership Conference just outside of Chicago, Illinois. On the very first day of that conference, in the very first general session, a tiny seed was planted. This tiny seed came in the form of a thought: "I want you to plant a new church in Lincoln, a different kind of church. A church with heart for the seeker, for that person who’s not attending church – but is interested in finding out about spiritual things."

That’s odd; finding out about "spiritual things" is not the language of the New Testament. No surprise though because this turns out to be just another man-centered emerging church as evidenced by the kind of well, maybe we do; maybe we don’t What We’re About page written by the late Mike Yaconelli of the Emergent group Youth Specialties.

And you know you’ve found one of the coolest cutting-edge churches with a worship pastor like Pastor Greg’s son Aaron, who even happens to be married "to a Jesus-loving party animal." This Aries "jesus follower. church planter. missionary. questioner. innovator. artist" is obviously one uber cool Christian while he enjoys his "good microbrews…okay macrobrews–preferably dark." Not to mention a good cigar, books by authors into contemplative spirituality like Brennan Manning, and those who deny sola Scriptura like Rob Bell.

Sad to see the further drift left of the EFCA.