The San Francisco Bay Area is home to the least church-going population in the United States
61% of the population does not attend church and one-third of all residents claim no religious affiliation but there's a group out to change that
The exponential conference recently came to the Bay Area for the second year in a row
The gathering is meant to catalyze evangelical Christian leaders to start new churches
It's called church planting and the goal of the conference as the name suggests is the exponential growth of the religious community
This is kind of the trade show for church planting exponential is that
It's the largest gathering of church planting and church planters in the world that we know of
It's American entrepreneurialism and capitalism displayed through Evangelical Protestant Christianity
The conference takes place across seven cities and the Bay Area event drew some prominent figures
At the intersection of the church and tech communities like Pat Gill, CEO of the 60 billion dollar software company VMware next slide
also without faith I'm the full-time minister of VMware and
I have 23 thousand souls that are under my leadership
Gelson Gary donates nearly half his annual income to charity, much of it directed to church planting organizations
One of my goals in the Bay Area would be that we're as innovative in our technology and startups as we are innovative in our church planting
and startup churches sometimes this means starting a new church from scratch
and sometimes it means creating spin-offs of a successful congregation
My vision would be double plane 2,000 new churches in the Bay Area over the next decade
But these churches may look different than you'd imagine, forget ornate architecture and stained-glass windows
Just as everyone's become accustomed to billion-dollar companies starting in garages and dorm rooms
these startup churches also meet just about anywhere
You'll hear stories and people starts in their living room a lot of them meet in schools a lot of them will be is they get larger in office parks
The Exponential conference was held in an office park in San Jose at Echo Church
Echo started in 2008 and since it's expanded to three locations
Lead pastor Andy Wood is in his 30s
At services he hosts young Christian rock bands, complete with dramatic concert lighting
A part of the benefit of being in more modern buildings is that we're able to take the experience that somebody might be having
as they're working at Google or Apple or Facebook and they're listening to music that sounds similar to what they hear on the radio
and they're hearing messages that even have similarities to Ted Talks
and there's a commonality that allows there to be a greater level of openness
doumoto would you stay with us come on
Echo Church even offers online services every Sunday for those who can't attend in person
Welcome to Echo Church, we are so glad you're here today
People are already living so much of their lives digitally so rather than fight that wave
we want to enter into that space to say okay, if somebody's spending you know massive amounts of time on their phone
well we we want to be able to provide hope in that place where they're already living
Other congregations are doing much the same
Menlo Church for example offers their sermons in podcast form
It underwent a major rebrand in 2015 and now boasts a slick website and active Twitter and Instagram presence
and about 6,000 weekly worshipers across six campuses
Church planters have also found common ground with Bay Area residents over a shared entrepreneurial spirit
Phrases like return-on-investment and product market fit flow in conversations with church planters
You know it's not coffee and donuts it's okay what's the business plan what's the milestones what's the schedule
You know what's the demographics why are people gonna come to your church
what are your messages and that kind of urgency matches the environment to the Bay Area
When Wood started Echo Church he created a 10 to 12 page strategic plan that he presented to potential funders
We would go to different pastors and churches and leaders and pitch our vision to them
and share with them the need or the opportunity for them to partner with us financially
and invest in this new endeavor we were able to raise over a million dollars to get this new church off the ground
which church is typical
and that it usually costs over a million dollars for a new church plant to reach
sustainability in the Bay Area however there's a number of organizations that
essentially provide venture capital for new congregations
Gelsinger is the chairman of the board at one of these groups called Transforming the Bay with Christ
which aims to convert 1 million people over the next decade
In order to do so, it hopes to raise $15 million for what it calls its startup church funds
It's easier to create something new than resurrect something that's dying
and when a church is on a decline there are usually reasons for it
some of the research shows that 40-50% of people that attend new church plants are from an unchurched background
We want to delight our customers we want to serve people and have people centered design at the focus of what we do
The difference of course is that if these startups succeed there's no acquisition or IPO
We just said everybody who invested in our church that there's a reward in heaven
There's an eternal reward for investing you just have to die to vest your stock