"... Petrie advocates what he calls “vertical development” or the advancement in a person’s capacity to think in “more complex, systemic, strategic, and interdependent ways (in contrast to horizontal development that adds knowledge, skills, and competencies). New leaders must think differently before they can act differently.
Often the qualities we see in church leaders are precisely those most associated with a low level of vertical development (dependent/conformer) — team player, faithful follower, reliant on authority, seeks direction, and aligns with others. A smaller number function at the next level (independent/achiever) — independent thinker, self-directed, drives an agenda, takes a stand for what they believe, and guided by an internal compass. But today’s need is for the more highly developed independent/collaborator leader characterized as interdependent thinker; sees systems, patterns, and connections; longer-term thinking; holds multi-frame perspectives; and holds contradictions.
The new leader must be far more adaptable to changing circumstances. Collaboration is essential in order to span boundaries and develop networks. Leaders will need to be much more comfortable with ambiguity in order to be always looking for clues and patterns in the changing landscape. Just as important, this new way of leading must move beyond leaders to affect the entire organizational culture of the church. Congregations need to expect incomplete solutions, much trial and error, and a great deal of learning about themselves and their contexts. ..."
Amen. Reading this post brought to mind an article I read about Microsoft's evolving process of software development. It used to be that Microsoft developed an operating system, released it, and then tried to stabilize it over the next three years. In the meantime, the next system was being designed, but you were mostly stuck with a given format for three years. It was much like building a house and moving in until you moved again in three years, and for that reason each house had to be delivered pretty much as a fully functional operational house when you moved in. Now operating systems have ongoing updates. There are still occasional major revisions but there is also constant evolution and correction. The church has got think more that way as well. The article is somewhat lengthy but an interesting read: How Microsoft dragged its development practices into the 21st century
"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States
declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new
churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network’s
most recent surveys. This wave of “church planting” has been highest
among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional
hierarchies.
“I hear a lot of pastors say, ‘I’m not just trying to be creative and
avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,’ ” said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.
Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the “emergent” church movement of the last decade or among “missional” churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.
Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.
... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.
Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.
The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.
Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk. ...
"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.
The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."
8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion across the country. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.
"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."
12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn’t Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball
Despite the sharing of conversations, there still are some distinct differences between Progressive Christianity and Emergence Christianity.
... Despite that sharing of conversationalists, however, there still are some distinct differences between Progressive Christianity and Emergence Christianity, at least three or four of which should be mentioned even in so brief an overview as this one. For example, Progressive Christianity pivots on social justice. Social justice is, likewise, a major concern and hallmark of Emergence Christianity, wherever in the Latinized world it may be forming and becoming operative. The difference—and it is, to me, a telling one—is in the underlying approach to the issue.
In dealing with matters of social justice, the Progressive stance and course of action generally are first intellectualized, then politicized, and finally formalized. By contrast, the Emergence posture or approach is far more pedestrian and humble in both its articulation and its delivery. Emergence Christians will defend vigorously their position that as long as some act of social justice has been a matter of "our doing something for them," the act is fundamentally one of enlightened or informed self-interest, if not plain old commonsense. Social justice, Emergence contends, really is—really must be—an exercise in "us helping each other" in whatever way possible here and now because of the bond of commonality that is Christ in all of us. ...
... Almost as remarkable is the way in which the operative approach to Scripture differs between the two groups. The Progressive stance, once again, is far more intellectualized than is that of Emergence. Born in a time of burgeoning Pentecostalism, Emergence Christianity and Emergence Christians are naturally inclined—increasingly so, in fact—toward the approach of communal discernment and direct appeal to the Holy Spirit for explication and direction. Such a stance allows Emergence to be more or less innocent of biblical literalism and far more inclined toward a kind of apophatic or Orthodox actualism.
Authority, for Emergence, is not yet firmly defined or ensconced, whereas for Progressives it tends to be fairly well rooted in situational, critical, and historical analysis. ...
Under the radar of most observers a trend is emerging of evangelicals converting to Catholicism.
... McKnight first identified these converts eight years ago, and the trend has continued to grow in the intervening years. It shows up in a variety of places, in the musings of the late Michael Spencer (the “Internet Monk”) about his wife’s conversion and his decision not to follow, as well as at the Evangelical Theological Society where the former President and Baylor University professor Francis J. Beckwith made a well-documented “return to Rome.” Additionally, the conversion trend is once again picking up steam as the Millennial generation, the first to be born and raised in the contemporary brand of evangelicalism, comes of age. Though perhaps an unlikely setting, The King’s College, an evangelical Christian college in New York City, provides an excellent case study for the way this phenomenon is manifesting itself among young evangelicals. ...
I've been saying for years that much of the emerging church in is simply Evangelicals embracing Mainline Protestant theology while experiencing reticence about Mainline institutions. While "emerging church" encompasses a broad range of expression, in the Mainline world it is almost monotone. Emerging Mainliners have little dispute with Mainline theology or the deep commitment to progressive/liberal politics. It is overwhelmingly about polity, structures, and frustration with lethargy. In this sense it is not truly post-evangelical and post-Mainline ... that is ... it is not truly emergent. The Mainline emerging church does not embrace the emerging church movement because it is something new but precisely because it dovetails so perfectly with their theological and political persuasions. And it really borders on comical to listen to some emerging church types describe the profound new reality that is emerging when in fact they are describing what Mainliners have been saying for decades. It is new and emerging to them only because their horizons have been so small.
At the PCUSA General Assembly this month, Landon Whitsitt, a pastor in my presbytery in the Kansas City metro (Heartland Presbytery) became vice-moderator for the denomination. On some issues I'm sure Landon and I are very different (for one thing, I don't have a PCUSA tattoo on my forearm) but read what he said in a recent interview with columnist Bill Tammeus:
What can the Emergent Church Movement, which has come primarily out of the evangelical branch of the church, teach the Mainline churches? On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is that movement?
"I don't know if ECM can 'teach' the Mainline anything, frankly. I have always kind of thought that the ECM is the vehicle that is dragging Evangelicalism into a form of faith similar to what the mainline churches experience.
"I'm sure they'd disagree, but, as an example, a lot of folks in the ECM are jazzed to the hilt about Walter Brueggemann right now. I'm so sick of Bureggemann after reading countless books during seminary. They love N.T. Wright. I'm not trying to be rude when I point out that those are Mainline folks.
"What the ECM challenges us on, however, is our creativity. We've gotten liturgically and politically lazy. No one wants to be a part of a bureaucratic institution anymore and no one wants to spend a hour on Sunday morning sitting through what is essentially a business meeting with some hymns. But 'emergence' in general (a la Tickle): This is nothing short of our age's Reformation. ...
Landon is spot on. I'd also add that unlike some other segments of the ECM, within the Mainline, to be emerging is close to synonymous with being politically progressive in your cultural engagement. And in that sense, it feels to me very much like the emergence of a progressive tribalism that simply is a mirror of, say, Southern Baptist conservative tribalism. Whether all this is a good thing or bad thing is all dependent on your perspective I'm sure. But I don't think it is emergent in the sense of coming a deep reassessment of what it means to be the church and of our engagement with the world. It is the extension of Mainline sensibilities with new modes of relating.
It is no original insight to note that ecologists and economists both derive equilibrium theories from the Darwinian assumption of natural selection of the traits of successful replicators – organisms for ecologists, firms for economists. Like an ecosystem, the economy is an “emergent” or “spontaneous” order, in which the decentralized actions of countless individuals generate a complex system with properties irreducible to those actions. Michael Polanyi and F.A. Hayek distinguish these spontaneous orders from planned orders, in which a system’s operation is guided or designed by a central engineer, and argue that spontaneous economic orders yield greater social welfare over the long run than planned ones.
Similarly, naturalists find that undisturbed ecosystems find their own equilibrium, in which each organism, as if guided by an invisible hand, seems to approach perfect adaptation to its niche relative to all other organisms. Extirpating one species or introducing another risks upsetting the equilibrium and extirpating more species. Since emergent orders are characterized by “tacit knowledge” unavailable to the outsider, we cannot easily replace them with designed orders that function “as if” spontaneous. Thus, the precise consequences of disturbing an ecosystem are as unpredictable as the precise consequences of disturbing a market (Bastiat’s “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen” is relevant here).
The principal difference between economic and ecologic orders is that the former are composed of more-or-less rationally choosing actors, many of whom are consciously considering the ultimate equilibrium that will obtain in a given market, while the latter are composed of nonrational organisms behaving according to evolved instinct. What this means in practice is that we should expect economic orders to approach equilibrium more nearly and more quickly than ecologic orders, which must wait for generations of organisms to survive and reproduce before desirable traits are passed on. Nonrational organisms seem to learn less about assuring their collective survival over their own lifetimes than do humans.
These considerations tell us that human engineering or central planning of an ecosystem is unlikely to work for the benefit of the inhabitants. ...
And this ties in with my post in March at Jesus Creed, Selective Emergence? The "Emergent" or "emerging church" moniker came from chaos theory where the focus was on how order emerges from seeming chaos. The emergence quality in the eco-system and in other parts of the natural world served as a parallel for how people see the life of the Church unfolding.
When I first got acquainted with the emerging church more than ten years ago I fully expected to run into a bunch of libertarian minded folks. After all, if emergence was so obvious in these arenas how could you miss it in the economic sphere of life. On the contrary, I've found the emerging conversation to be dominated by political progressive or liberal mindsets. In fact, my perception is that in the PCUSA, "emerging church" and "progressive" are nearly used synonymously. "Emergence" is used selectively to legitimate selected cherished agendas but opposed when it challenges notions of the political/economic order.
Yesterday at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight linked a great post by Allan Bevere where he raised an excellent question:
I know I am not the only one who has noticed that all the Christians comparing the USA to the Roman Empire during the reign of George W. Bush are strangely silent now that we are under the emperorship of Barack Obama. And yet, how much of President Obama's foreign policy looks virtually the same as his predecessor.
I've been very aware of this absence as well and find it quite revealing. Here is what I wrote (slightly edited) in a lengthy comment.
The defining feature of Empire is its totalitizing agenda. Everything and everyone must come under the service of the Empire. That certainly has implications for how and empire relates to those outside its immediate influence but it equally involves how it subjugates those who reside in the empire.
Liberals have used the Empire motif for American international interventions under Republican leadership. It is a characterization worthy of reflection. But what about the Empire building of progressivism?
Not long before being elected senator, Obama talked of a Second Bill of Rights … channeling FDR. It is a common mindset shared by the left. The original Bill of Rights lists “negative” rights, telling what the government will not do. The Second Bill of Rights would be “positive” rights guaranteeing everyone a home, health care, education, recreation, and so on. In other words, government moves from being a referee for free and virtuous people taking responsibility for themselves and their communities to government being the direct or indirect provider of every aspect of our basic existence. Every sphere of life … business, education, medicine, compassionate care … becomes an extension of government management used toward government’s guarantee of positive rights. All institutions and traditions in our various spheres of life are made to serve the Empire.
If you’ve read much of Roman history you will know that Rome was a Republic until just a couple generations before Christ was born. There was some separation of powers and checks on power in a system governed by patricians and plebes, each with their own pyramidal network of client/patron connections. With the rise of the Empire, Augustus and later Caesars began to portray Rome as a household with Caesars as the paterfamilias of the household. All other households were now clients to the one household of Caesar.
At Christ's birth there was still a considerable distribution of social strata running from senator to slave. But over the next two or three centuries, freedoms eroded while land and produce was steadily siphoned away from citizens by powerful government elites to the point that the elaborate hierarchy of Roman society had been flattened to a handful of wealthy elite and everyone else. That was the Empire that had just found its legs during the era of the N.T. Church.
Thus, Empire isn’t just about international expansionism but bringing every sphere of life under one authority placing those spheres into the service of that authority. True Anabaptists that I have known over the years get that. That is why they come out from society to be a separate witness. What I don’t get are the self-proclaimed Hauerwasian Emergent style Anabaptists who level the Empire critique against Republican internationalism while actively and fervently campaigning for social progressivism. It strikes me merely as social progressivism dressed up in spiritual language.
I’m not an Anabaptist but neither do I believe political solutions are the primary answer to most human problems. The threat of Empire is ever present yet I believe we are called to be present in all spheres of human life, and discerning how best we can continue to nudge our communities and structures toward a more shalom –filled world. My experience is that most of the Empire talk has little to do with robust theological analysis and much to do with legitimizing political agendas.
The Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, is the recipient of the 2010 Perkins School of Theology Distinguished Alumnus Award.
The award recognizes a Perkins graduate who has demonstrated effectiveness and integrity in service to the church, continuing support and involvement in the goals of Perkins School of Theology and SMU, distinguished service in the wider community, and exemplary character.
Rev. Hamilton was appointed in 1990 to a start-up mission in Leawood, Kansas, a southern suburb of Kansas City. He has overseen the growth of that congregation, the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, into one of the largest in United Methodism, with a membership of more than 12,000.
... But I’m going to do that by speaking of three tasks I think we must be about if we are going to be effective Christian leaders today. We must,
• Preach sermons that speak to both the head and the heart • Help people make sense of God in the light of their experience of the world • Help churches move from an inward focus to an outward, missional focus.
Whenever I am speak to a church or group of lay leaders about the missional church movement, I inevitably spend the greatest amount of time trying to convince them that "Christendom" is over. From now on I am going to come with the new Gap Ad ready to play. If you haven't seen it, watch it :
For the record, I like the artistic composition of this ad. I think the costumes (Gap clothes) are fun and the dancers are talented and beautiful. The choreography is top-notch. High school dance teams the nation over will be mimicking this ad all year.
Let's take a look at the lyrics:
2, 4, 6, 8! 'Tis the time to liberate! Go Christmas! Go Hanukkah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice! Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go without a tree! You 86 the rules! You do what just feels right! Happy do whatever you want-a-kah and to all a cheery night!
First notice that Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice are all equated. But of course, they are very different holidays. ...
... The missional church movement begins by acknowledging that proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a radical, counter-cultural act that requires courage and conviction. If you don't believe that being a Christian is outside the norm of American culture, then just watch this ad again. And then imagine how your church needs to change inside and out to reach secular Americans with the Good News.
Just over ten years ago, my friend Steve told me he was part of a core group that wanted to plant a church in my neighborhood, not far from downtown Kansas City, MO. He wanted to know if I knew of a place they could meet. I suggested the unused third floor of our church building. That was the beginning of Jacob’s Well, an emerging congregation, pastored by Tim Keel.
The struggling Presbyterian (PCUSA) congregation of which I was a part of played the supporting role of landlord and cheerleader from 1998 until 2003 to the newer merging congregation. In 2003, the Presbyterian congregation dissolved and sold the facility to Jacob’s Well. Jacob’s Well now has three Sunday worship services and a vibrant ministry presence in the community.
I found a lot in common with Jacob’s Well and the questions they wrestled with. I’ve attended a couple of Emergent Village events. I’ve attended local discussion groups. I continue to read books, articles, and blogs by several of the key personalities connected with the emerging church (of which Emergent Village is but one expression.) There is also a community of Emergent folks inside the PCUSA called Presbymergent that I follow. I’ve been at least at the edge of the emerging church movement since before it … well … emerged. So what is the emerging church all about?
Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional is a book by Jim Belcher, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Newport Beach, CA. Belcher offers a brief account of how the emerging church came to be and acquaints readers with the significant contours of the at least the American expression of it. I like his characterization of the emerging church movement as a desire for what C. S. Lewis called mere Christianity or “deep church.”
Belcher lays the defining features of traditional Evangelicalism and characterizes the Emerging church as a protest movement against Evangelicalism’s cooption by Modernism. While many emerging church folks share some common critique of the traditional Evangelicalism, Belcher identifies three types of responses:
The Relevants. Still hold to traditional theology but believe that worship and ministry need a serious make over for the message becomes more relevant to the postmodern world.
The Reconstructionists. Tend to be influenced by Anabaptist “resident aliens” perspectives and a desire to return to a pre-Constantinian early church model … they hold to more orthodox views of Scripture but see a need for more radical change in mission and ecclesiology.
The Revisionists. They are questioning core theological understandings as well as virtually every other aspect of what has historically been known as Christian. This third group includes some key leaders of the Emergent Village and is the group that most people first thing of when the “emerging church” moniker is mentioned. (I think it is also safe to say that the great majority of Mainline Christians who call themselves emerging are of this camp.)
Over the last two thirds of the book, entitled “Protest, Reaction and the Deep Church,” Belcher walks us through seven key issues that the emerging church is protesting. With each he explains how traditional Evangelicalism has responded to the protest and then how he sees Deep Church as a response. The book is written in a very engaging gracious conversational style, with Belcher offering considerable autobiographical accounts that relate to his journey and the formation of the church he planted.
I think Belcher has his finger squarely on the pulse of what is happening with the emerging church. He is offering some insights for how church could be done differently that escapes some of the Evangelical versus emerging church conflict, as well as some useful insights about church that have application beyond that conversation.
The book also really brought into focus for me why I always feel like such an outsider to the emerging church conversation. My frame of reference is Mainline Christianity, which has a whole different set of Modernist baggage than Evangelicals do. Postmodernism presents major challenges here as well. The only “emerging church” conversation I find is with those who identify strongly with Belcher’s Revisionist group. I’m not a Revisionist. Go to any emerging church venue that isn’t dominated by Revisionists and it’s like walking in on someone else’s family squabble (i.e., Evangelicals versus Emerging). Where is the conversation for non-Revisionist mainliners who aren’t Hauerwas Anabaptists or McLaren social progressives, but see the need for serious rethinking of what it means to be the church? This is not a criticism of Belcher’s book but rather an acknowledgement of how his clarity helps bring other issues into focus.
If you want to get a handle on what the Evangelical and emerging church controversy is about, and considerable insight on alternatives to the controversy, you need to read this book. It is one of the best two or three books I’ve read on the emerging church movement. Hat’s off to Belcher for a very important contribution to the conversation.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most brilliant and enjoyable economic essays ever written. It's titled I Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read. It beautifully illustrates that no one is in charge of making pencils (there is no pencil czar) and yet there is always an abundant supply of pencils. It demonstrates the concept emergence within economies.
What I find particularly fascinating is that this essay, now fifty years old, captures many of the dynamics that led Emerging Church leaders to label their movement emergent or emerging. Order seems to spontaneously emerge from largely independent entities pursing their own aims without direction from large institutional structures. With emerging church folks, there is a decided bias against structures that try to shape and control how things should operate based on this understanding of emergence. Anti-denominational sentiments are strong or there is at least a denominational minimalism.
It was my appreciation of emergence encountered in my studies of physical science and economics that attracted me to the emerging church conversation as it was forming ten years ago. But over the years I've become less and less interested this conversation as I've tried to engage with economic issues. Generally speaking, emergent Christians are among some of the least emergent thinking people I encounter when it comes to economic questions. There is a widely shared embrace of social progressivism with its belief that a centralized government entity can produce the best and most just economy.
If you read my blog, you know I'm a big believer in market economies but I repeatedly acknowledge that people are not entirely rational utility-maximizing machines and markets do no function with perfection. I'm not a libertarian. There is a place for government. But on the church front, unlike so many Emergent folks, I do believe there is a role for larger institutional structures. Whether it is governments or denominations, their role is to "tend the soil" so that vibrant and healthy things can emerge. They also help resist the parasites and other threats to the environment.
My frustration with the Emergent conversation is that I think folks frequently overplay the issue of emergence within the church and are virtually oblivious to emergence in economic matters. I think we need better reflection on how emergence works and the role of large entities across a range of social contexts.
Exhausted from global warming in oppressed Palestine, Jesus chilled at Jacob’s Well in the realm of “the other” called Samaria.
Jesus’ cohort left him to buy organic at the nearest kiosk.
A Samaritan woman-”the other to the second power”-approached the community’s gathering space, carrying the symbol of her status in a harsh patriarchal culture.
Jesus said, “Water is good. Water is to be shared. Water is life. May we share in a drink of water together?” He lit two candles, too, symbolizing the two flames of life at the well.
The woman replied, “I am in the oppressed class (Samartian) and you are in the religiously oppressive class (Jew). I am victim. You are power. How is it that you encounter me in an egalitarian way in a world of power-assigned values?”
Jesus pushed back, “Woman, I am post-Jewish. I am post-Second Temple Judaism. I am assigning new symbolic value to people, places and religion itself. I am on a journey through liminal space into the emerging reality.”
“Friend,” the woman asked, “what will this new reality be?” ...
What does “missional” mean? Earlier this month I was at a Presbyterian Church, USA, meeting that included presbytery and synod executives, General Assembly Council members, and few other leaders of denominational entities (see earlier post). We had read articles by Darrell Guder in advance and then heard a presentation on being missional by Guder to kick-off our time together.
As the group engaged in small group discussions, it was clear that the term “missional” had a range of diverse meanings for us, some would likely be unrecognizable to those who first popularized the term. Feedback from small groups suggested that we must first define “missional” before we seek to explore its implications for our live together. There was real doubt about whether or not we Presbyterians could ever settle on such a definition?
However, some among us asserted that we had already defined “missional.” Chapter 3 of the PCUSA Book of Order is a description of being “missional.” Here is what the writing team offered up as a “definition” of missional. For those of you who are passionate about being a missional church, what do you think?
The Church and its mission is given by God’s activity in the world as told in the Bible and understood by faith….
The Church of Jesus Christ is the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity. The Church is called to be a sign in and for the world of the new reality, which God has made available to people in Jesus Christ. The new reality revealed in Jesus Christ is the new humanity, a new creation, a new beginning for human life in the world: Sin is forgiven. Reconciliation is accomplished. The dividing walls of hostility are torn down.
The Church is the body of Christ, both in its corporate life and in the lives of its individual members, and is called to give shape and substance to this truth. The Church is called to tell the good news of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ as the only Savior and Lord, proclaiming in Word and Sacrament that the new age has dawned. God who creates life, frees those in bondage, forgives sin, reconciles brokenness, makes all things new, is still at work in the world.
The Church is called to present the claims of Jesus Christ, leading persons to repentance, acceptance of him as Savior and Lord, and new life as his disciples.
The Church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist going into the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all he has commanded; demonstrating by the love of its members for one another and by the quality of its common life the new reality in Christ; sharing in worship, fellowship, and nurture, practicing a deepened life of prayer and service under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; participating in God’s activity in the world through its life for others by healing and reconciling and binding up wounds, ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the powerless, engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear, oppression, hunger, and injustice, giving itself and its substance to the service of those who suffer, sharing with Christ in the establishing of his just, peaceable, and loving rule in the world.
The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.
The Church is called… to a new openness to the possibilities and perils of its institutional forms in order to ensure the faithfulness and usefulness of these forms to God’s activity in the world, [and] to a new openness to God’s continuing reformation of the Church ecumenical, that it might be a more effective instrument of mission in the world.
(Book of Order, Chapter III, “The Church and Its Mission,” G‐3.0100, 3.0200‐3.0400, 3.0401c,d.)
...Liberal politics and emerging theology go hand in hand. But what is the connection? Must one lead to the other?
Christians are drawn to the emerging church for many reasons. Many are uncomfortable with the evangelical status quo, especially the bond between conservative politics and conservative theology. Others simply see the winds of culture shifting, and they don't want to be left behind. But I would suggest some deeper connections between liberal politics and emerging theology. ...
But despite the emerging church's talk about community, postmodernism actually encourages greater individualism. It does this through a view called perspectivalism. At its best, perspectivalism reminds us that our knowledge is limited and conditioned at least in part by our experience. ... however, this means all theology is temporary. It is relative; it doesn't transcend time or geography. Extreme perspectivalism can wreak havoc on biblical hermeneutics. How are we supposed to apply the Bible's teaching today? ...
...This kind of perspectivalism compounds existing problems for evangelicals trying to make policy judgments. Evangelicals don't have a long history of sophisticated political thinking. We too often confuse ends with means. ...
...History teaches us another lesson. We celebrate those Christians like Bonhoeffer or Wilberforce who stood on biblical principle and challenged the evils of their day. Timeless theology enabled them to see what their contemporaries sinfully ignored....
Collin Hansen offers some wonderful insights in this article.
In his last two books, Brian McLaren presents more clearly than ever his vision of the gospel.
The most stable location for the earliest understandings of the Cross, from Jesus all the way through the New Testament writings, is the Last Supper—and not a word is said there about violence and systemic injustice. Other words are given to explain the event: covenant, forgiveness of sins, and blood "poured out for many." Insight into the Cross must start here. In fact, I question whether a cross that only undoes violence is enough to create liberation, peace, and a kingdom vision. Can McLaren's view of the Cross create the emergent understanding of kingdom? ...
The tour featuring Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette will hit thirty-two cities across the U.S., with a message that combines old time revival flair with a 21st century gospel. Tony, Doug, and Mark will present a 90-minute show (including a 20-minute intermission) that will combine humor and passion, speaking and video, preaching and dialogue. Audiences will be entertained, to be sure, but, more importantly, they will be given a vision of an alternative Christianity. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door.
I saw the event when I was in San Jose a couple of weeks ago and wrote a review here. Its worth your time. I don't know that I'll be at this event as I will have just finished my softball game and will very likely be in traction.
I'm in San Jose for the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly. My first day here was a non-stop string of meetings from 8:00 am to 6:30 pm but I made the fifteen minute walk to First Presbyterian Church just in time to see the Church Basement Roadshow: A Rollin' Gospel Revival.
The event is a combination of book readings and musical theater. Doug Pagitt, Mark Scandrette, and Tony Jones are three Emeregent leaders who take on the personas of 1908 revivalists. Similarities between our world and the world of 100 years ago cleverly demonstrated. Interspered throughout the event are some very engaging video clips and readings from books each of the three have recently written. If you the show comes to your area you should check it out. Here are a couple pics.
Are you a Red Letter Christian? “Red Letter” refers to versions of the Bible that put direct quotes from Jesus in red ink. Red Letter Christians are those who believe that the ethics and teaching taught directly by Jesus should take priority over other agendas presented in the Bible. Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis are two figures who have been prominent advocates of this framework. In fact, Sojourners has created what they call they the Red Letter Christian Network. The listing of leaders in the network includes (among others) Randall Balmer, Diana Butler Bass, Shane Claiborne, Obery Hendricks, Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, Ron Sider, and Barbara Brown Taylor.
I reject this title and always have. It strikes me as an overreaction to excesses many perceive to have come from the religious right. I believe this new Red Letter agenda is every bit as flawed as the agenda it seeks to replace. Why? To answer that, I’m going to give you this wonderful excerpt from Jack Stackhouse's Making the Best of it: Following Christ in the Real World. This comes from a section dealing with mistaken perceptions of what it means to imitate Christ.
“What would Jesus do?’ therefore is the wrong question for Christian ethics. If we keep asking it, moreover, we will keep making the perennial mistakes many have made, such as prioritizing church work over daily trades (“because Jesus gave up carpentry for preaching the gospel”); valorizing singleness, at least for clergy (”because Jesus didn’t marry”); and denigrating all involvement in the arts, politics, or sports (“because we never read of Jesus painting a picture or participating in political discussions, much less kicking a ball”). Instead, “What would Jesus want me or us to do, here and now?” is the right question – or, if I may, Who are we, for Jesus Christ today?
Connected with this material issue, the issue of the imitation of Christ as the main motif of Christian discipleship, is a formal issue for ethical method. Many Christians, including some quite sophisticated theologians, seem to equate the priority of Christ himself versus other figures with the priority of the gospels versus other books of the Bible, such as the prophets or the epistles. But this is an important hermeneutical error (bemusingly reminiscent of 1 Cor. 1:12: “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Cephas” or “I belong to Christ.”), and in at least four respects.
First, even though the gospels come first in the canon of the New Testament, they are probably not the earliest testimonies to Jesus in the Bible. Paul’s early letters, most scholars agree, predate most or all of the four gospels. So if we are seeking access to the most primitive layer of “Jesus tradition,” in terms of whole books (rather than this pericope or that saying or this hymn or that parable in the gospels), Paul’s work would deserve priority.
Second, we should not be privileging whatever we guess is the earlier material in the New Testament versus the later, because all of it is inspired by God and therefore has the same status: Holy Scripture. Any historian knows that sometimes later accounts are better than earlier ones precisely because the later accounts can have benefited from access to several earlier accounts plus perspective that only time can bring. So there is neither theological nor historical ground for preferring “earlier” to “later” – and that goes for preferring Mark’s gospel to John’s too.
Third, privileging the gospels in the name of privileging Jesus would make sense in terms of the relative status of the Lord Jesus versus his disciples, the epistle writers Paul, Peter, John, and others. But the gospels are authored not by Jesus but by other Christians: traditionally, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So to privilege them is simply to prefer Matthew to Paul, or Mark to Peter, or John to, well, John (I-III John) – which reduces to a preference of genre, of gospels versus epistles. Such a preference hardly has literary or theological merit. (Indeed, the championing of the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is particularly odd coming from educated Christians, who sound as if they have discovered a red-letter edition of the Bible, except that their new version prints all of the gospels in red ink, while the rest of the Bible remains in black.)
Finally, the story of Jesus is, of course, the key to history. But to emphasize the gospels over the rest of the New Testament is to forget that Jesus is Lord over all of history, Head of the church that succeeds him in earthly ministry, and in fact Author of the whole New Testament via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – as he is the God who inspired the whole Bible. The better hermeneutical path, therefore, is to keep clearly in view what each of the books of the Bible has to offer us and to draw upon them according to their distinctive natures, regarding not only their genre strengths and limitations but also the place of their subject matter in the Christian Story. We Christians are not to be forever repristinating the experience of the disciples trooping about with Christ in ancient Judea – nor, for that matter, the experience of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts. For there are more chapters in Acts, and the unfinished nature of the book has itself prompted many readers to the conclusion that God intends the rest of the church to keep writing it, generation by generation, until the Lord of the church returns, to fulfill the promise made at the book’s beginning (Acts 1:11) (190-192)
Why did the Emergent Chicken cross the road? Here are my top ten reasons in no particular order:
The Chicken was drawn to the candles and incense on the other side of the road.
There was a Hauerwas discussion group at the coffee shop on the other side of the road.
The idea to cross the road emerged from the chicken’s generative cohort.
It was more “post” on the other side of the road. (i.e, postmodern, post-evangelical, post-colonial, post-institutional, post-post, etc. Pick your favorite "post.")
D. A. Carson showed up on the chicken’s side of the road.
Obama was on the other side of the road.
To demonstrate that it is more environmentally sustainable to walk across the road than to drive across the road.
Bono said crossing the road would save Africa.
The chicken was seeking change. Everything must change!
The question is merely a foundationalist modernist attempt to distill complex realities down to a single proposition in accordance with some metanarrative.
A new movement is attracting a younger generation of Christians, shaking up institutions, denominations, and churches along the way. Not everyone in the movement is attracted to it for the same reasons, but they gather at conferences and online to share thoughts, debate, and learn from the elder statesmen of the group. Now a new book attempts to explain, sympathetically, what's really going on.
Actually, it's two books, and two movements.
Collin Hansen's Young, Restless, Reformed started as a September 2006 Christianity Todayarticle. Now editor-at-large for Christianity Today, Hansen has examined why many young Christians are drawn to Calvinism, whom these new Calvinists are listening to, and what they're passionate about.
Hansen's book begins with a note comparing the relative obscurity of the new Calvinism and the prominence of the emerging church. Among his interviewees was Tony Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village, and author of the new book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.
Jones is the author of several previous books, but The New Christians is more journalistic in its approach, describing the origins of the emerging church, why it's growing, and how it's changing.
The books and movements share a number of themes: reaction against entertainment-driven church life, desire for transcendence, rediscovery of tradition, and a need to answer common misconceptions about the movements. Christianity Today invited Hansen and Jones to read each other's books and discuss how the rise of one movement might illuminate aspects of the rise of the other. Are both movements scratching the same itch? Are there internal tensions in one movement that also appear in the other?
The conversation will continue over several days. ...
Heres a little email chat I had with Brian McLaren recently. He agreed to let me post it on my blog. I reviewed Brian's book "Everything Must Change" but my mixed review was a little harsh and I had a few questions unanswered. I thought it would be worthwhile to post the conversation here in case you had the same questions as I did. Anyway, thanks Brian for your responses. Here is the conversation: ...
I was one of your students at Trinity Evang Div School… Although my leanings are not emerging/emergent, I want to be fair, honest, and even-handed as I share on the emerging/emergent movement. My questions are these:
1) Could you (or your blog responders) share what you all consider to be the strengths of the emerging/emergent movement?
2) What would you want me to share with other pastors about this movement?
Thanks for any consideration you might give to this.
Various regular readers of the Jesus Creed are offering their thoughts in the comments.
…from one of my heroes and a pioneer of the internet. He encouraged me to post this but asked that his identity be withheld.
Dear Tony,
I actually procrastinated a bit this morning and read your chapter (partly because I’m interested in new books, as I’m writing one of my own). Obviously (given the length here) either I really wanted to procrastinate, or your writing struck a chord. Probably both....
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The only other movement I can think of that really successfully mixes the cherished doctrines of the traditional left and the traditional right is the libertarian movement. But libertarianism is still an ideology! It still takes specific positions on the above ideological divides: less legislation of morality, less control of economic life, more secularization.
Still, I think it’s great, if true, that a new kind of Christianity is emerging in which left and right are brought together and put their differences aside. If it does so by pretending that there aren’t differences, or that the differences aren’t meaningful or that they don’t matter, however, they’re fooling themselves and the facts sure to come back to bite them in their fantasies, as facts are wont to do!
If I had to guess, I would say that the leaders of the emergent Christianity phenomenon (as you’ve described it) are, in fact and perhaps unadmitted to themselves, good old-fashioned liberals. It is one of dear old habits of the left to reject all “categorization” in political terms, or to say that they lack ideology, or are “mainstream” or “moderate” (with everyone to their right often being dismissed as knuckle-dragging right-wingers). But if they are liberals that actually tolerate conservatives, instead of dismissing them as knuckle-draggers, that’s wonderful. Likewise, if the movement has fundamentalists who nevertheless are willing to break bread with gays instead of saying they’ll go to hell, great. Sounds like real Christian love to me.
The point, which I’m not saying you don’t already get, but which doesn’t come out in the first chapter, is this: you can’t escape ideology except by escaping politics altogether. You can, of course, form communities in which ideology doesn’t matter so much. ...
And this goes to one of my biggest irritations about Emergent. It isn't that Emergent leaders appear to be political liberals. I spend much of my time within the hierarchy of the PCUSA, where in meetings I'm nearly always in a non-liberal minority and not infrequently in a minority of one. I can live with that. What I find irritating is the persistent proclamations by Emergent-types of being an expansive movement that transcends all boundaries (political included) and foreshadows the emerging work of the Holy Spirit in the world while using (with only very narrow shades of difference) the same religious left perspective that Mainline denominations (i.e., National Council of Churches club) have been using for decades. Whether influenced by denial, naivete, or cold calculation, many of these folks need to get in touch with their inner liberal and own it. :) Then maybe we could ratchet down the messianic sanctimony and really have conversation.
The phrase "emergent church difficulties and differences", although it sounds like a new book title, is actually found in a document from 1622 known as the Propositions of the Synod of the churches of New England, which convened in Boston that year. This document was part of the affirmation of the Halfway Covenant of 1622. ...
I ask this every year. This year, MOST people in my world say that the label “emerging church” or “emergent church” does not define or describe the kinds of ministries they are doing. That also means that many books on the subject do not speak for these people and most of the criticism misses its target. Not only that, but using the term is problematic for some Seminaries and ministries. What do you think? Is the term helpful to you or a hindrance?
In comments, I noted:
thanks for asking the question. I go back and forth. the emergent thread of the emerging church seems to have most of the emerging famous and so it draws most of the attention and most of the criticism. …I definitely consider myself emerging but haven’t resonated as much with the emergent side of the conversation, though I have friends there. And I have gotten publicly criticized by those who consider me emergent and don’t seem to be saavy to the distinction. In fact, it seems to me that most outside of the conversation aren’t saavy as to the distinction. Because of this, I’m wondering if we non-emergent emergers should just call ourselves missional and be done with it. ...
To be missiological in a post-Christendom world is not to be more committed to programs of mission but hold resolutely to an ecclesiology that is incomprehensible apart from mission. … In this context, we do not seek to “reach” a “target group or demographic with a message. We live incarnationally in order to demonstrate the new reality that is being revealed in Jesus Christ and embodied by his people the church. A hunger for this kind of living is what I sense in the email from the young man I quoted above. This longing is something for which the religious structures of the world, such as they are, have no imagination or framework. This is what I experienced firsthand in college that was transformational for so many.
The gospel is not a location to be defended. It is an alternate reality based on the person of Jesus Christ, who has called around himself a new community to live his life out in the world of hope, courage, and joy. We are called to live out our faith in the margins, witnessing to the gospel as communities of disciples following in the ways of our Master, Jesus Christ. The false dichotomies between evangelism and discipleship, between justification and sanctification break down, and we are joined holistically with God as we pursue Christ and his intentions for the world. (156)
Keel makes the case that we need leadership that fosters this expression of the church but Keel makes clear that there is no simple recipe for birthing such an environment.
What Keel gives is a testimony coupled with his reflections on what is happening in culture. He describes his journey into Evangelical Christianity as a teenager and the twists and turns that led him to birthing Jacob’s Well ten years ago. There is a lot of rich material to reflect on. At the conclusion of the book he suggests that rather than looking for a ten step program for transformation that leaders might do better to develop certain postures. He suggests nine for consideration:
A posture of learning: From answers to questions
A posture of vulnerability: From the head to the heart
A posture of availability: From spoken words to living words
A posture of stillness: From preparation to meditation
A posture of surrender: From control to chaos
A posture of cultivation: From programmer from environmentalist
A posture of trust: From defensiveness to creativity
A posture of joy: From work to play
A posture of dependence: From resolution to tension – and back again
Several of these could be read as moving from pole to another. I think it would be more helpful instead to see the direction of movement indicated with each posture in terms of the need to live more fully within a polarity (ex. embracing both head and heart versus trading one for the other.) At any rate, I found the thrust of what he had to say here very helpful and worthy of much reflection.
Keel is one of the original folks that brought together what has become Emergent or the Emergent Village. It is one semi-institutional expression of a much larger and more diverse movement called the emerging church movement. Those of you who read my blog regularly know my deeply ambivalent feelings toward Emergent. Where I resonate most with the Emergent conversation is in their exploration of missiology, ecclesiology, incarnational living, and leadership. Tim’s book gives wonderful insight into these topics. I think his book is reflective of what drives a great many in the emerging church movement.
Some of you probably know I have a strong personal connection with Jacob’s Well. Jacob’s Well meets in the old Roanoke Presbyterian Church building located in the next neighborhood south from where I live. Melissa and I joined that church in 1993 and were there until 2003. A good friend of mine who was a part of the Jacob’s Well core group in 1998 asked me if I knew of any space where a church plant could meet in the neighborhood. I suggested the third floor of our facility was unused and the rest is history. That gave me front row seats to the first five years of Jacob’s Well emergence. (The Roanoke Presbyterian congregation dissolved in 2003 and sold the building to Jacob’s Well after a major institutional train wreck in 2002. I differ with Tim’s brief characterization of the Roanoke collapse but that is an irrelevant footnote.) I still drop by Jacob’s Well every so often and I have several friends who worship there. I love Tim’s heart and watch with fascination at what God is doing among the Jacob’s Well community.
Anyway, the short story is, buy the book! It is a thought-provoking look from the very creative mind of a challenging emerging church leader.
(For those of you in the Kansas City area, Tim will be meeting with the KC Emergent cohort to talk about his book on the Thursday the 6th at Noon at the Westport First Watch. If you have the time free, come on by. I hope to be there but don't let that deter you.)
BRUSSELS--Old ladies sitting in otherwise empty churches. That's the picture most of my American friends have of spirituality in Europe. Well, that or a continent being overrun by jihadist Muslims. It's not an entirely incorrect picture (the empty churches, not the scimitar-wielding immigrants). How is it, then, that a guy like me, Bible Belt-born and -bred, lifetime churchgoer, has found spiritual renewal in this pit of secularism? And am I the only one?
The hard data show that Christianity remains in long-term decline here. A 2004 Gallup poll found that 15% of Europeans attend a weekly worship service of any faith, compared with 44% of Americans. And the spiritual gap between the U.S. and Europe is actually "worse than people think," says Philip Jenkins, author of "God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis."
But the light is not yet out. Those remaining believers and the faith communities they form are what Prof. Jenkins calls "white dwarves"--because "they're smaller than the sun, but they shine brighter." I'm no astrophysicist, but it seems to me that such intense bodies--when composed of people who believe passionately in a cause--are more likely to expand than to contract.
This is certainly true of the church in which I'm involved here, which has grown to 120 members--larger than the average church in Belgium--in just a couple of years.
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The Well doesn't gather as one large group in a church building but rather as a few smaller groups in cafés and restaurants. That's in part because we don't actually own a building. But there's a purpose behind this, too: It's far less intimidating for newcomers to visit a public space with a dozen or so other people than a normal "church" with pews and a steeple and a hundred strange faces. In the course of our gatherings, we also meet people who were just going out for coffee and probably wouldn't have wandered into a sanctuary along the way.
This emphasis on the nontraditional is intentional. For many of the Europeans I've met here, it's not God who is dead to them as much as it is The Church--the official, often state-supported church, be it Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran. Now new life is being infused into these churches by missionaries from America and even Africa.
For a growing movement of believers, an activist faith means more than proselytizing about Jesus and stoking the fires of our culture wars. Welcome to the new (and yes, liberal) world of evangelical Christianity.
A passerby might not have known: Was this going to be a church service or a concert by an alternative rock band? The set-up on the stage suggested the latter — a drum kit, guitars on stands, several microphones, and large screens flashing iconic Portland scenes — and so did the look of the young, urban-hip crowd filling up the auditorium.
Then the band hit the stage with a loud, infectious groove, the front man singing passionately about God, and it was clear that the Sunday gathering of Portland's Imago Dei Community was both alt-rock concert and church service, or neither, exactly. So it goes in the new world of alternative evangelical Christianity, better known as the emerging church.
There's a growing buzz about the emerging movement, and depending on your point of view, its robust growth and rising influence are worthy of applause, scorn, or perhaps just puzzlement. Fitting for a movement that eschews hierarchy and dogma, emergents defy simple definition. Perhaps the best one can say is that they're new-style Christians for the postmodern age, the evangelicals of whom the late Rev. Jerry Falwell disapproved. ...
I grew up in the 1960s generation. That tells you a lot really. We were disillusioned, on a very profound level, yet very idealistic on another. I adopted elements of both of these as my own intellectual and spiritual life developed over the decades that followed....I dreamed about making a huge difference by pastoring a faithful and biblical flock. Over the last fifteen years, or so, I have had to resist the opposite extreme, disillusionment.... I have seen so much that breaks my heart, in me and in others, that I wonder about the whole business.
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It seems to me the real problem with the idealist is that he or she is more in love with ideals than with people and the Church. This is Bonhoeffer's famous "wish dream." The problem with disillusionment is that you will lose your way just trying to get by and not mess things up too much. Don't misunderstand me. This latter response is not totally bad. Young adults must face life and experience their hard knocks like everyone else. Middle aged adults tend to still think that they can get it right if they only have the "perfect storm" come along. By this stage of life I just want to love God and love my neighbor and remain a truly faithful follower of Christ.
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Many of you know that I have a deep personal interest in many people and ideals within the emergent movement. You can praise it or condemn it. Because I do neither some find me an easy target. But I count many of the writers and leaders in these circles as friends. At the same time I profoundly disagree with some of these men and women on some very important issues.
One of the concerns I repeatedly have, after conversations with emergent leaders, or when I read the newest highly-promoted book release like Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change (Nelson, 2007), is simply this: "When will this idealism run out and people will begin to burn out?" Brian is so interesting, so serious, and so engaged. At the same time he writes some of the best, and some of the worst, material from within this movement. His ideals are stimulating and his prose moving.
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...I am concerned, however, for many of the young people who follow these trends and the continually moving ideals generated by this, or any similar, movement. Where will this lead these young adults when these communities do not work the way they are supposed to work? Where will they be when the music stops and the movement is no longer exciting? Where will they be when the trendiness no longer seems trendy enough? What then?
John has more than decade headstart on me but reading this post I felt like John was reading my mind. Very well said.
About eight years ago, I found myself in a convent in Bogotá, Colombia. I had not planned to get me to a nunnery. But it just so happened that I had signed up for a women’s retreat with the Baptist church where I was serving with youth that summer, and since the local convent had a bit of extra space, they hosted us for the weekend. My room—quiet, clean, white—lacked only one thing: distractions. It was perfect. It felt like I had entered rehab for the chronically over-stimulated. That weekend, I got a taste of something that hordes of evangelical Christians are flirting with today: monasticism.
Be it Baptists, Presbyterians, or Pentecostals, evangelicals of all stripes can be found flitting around the ancient pathways of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Benedictine orders. What’s the attraction? I decided to investigate. It seems the frenzied and the frenetic are finding stillness and order; the alienated are discovering the richness of belonging; and the non-committal are jumping headlong into the freedom of vows. ...
Emergent worship folks in the Presbyterian church are trying to figure out where to go from here – along the way taking the temperature of people interested in the emergent life, and planning more conversations.
A new book — An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, including some essays written by Presbyterians — attempts to lay out aspects of emergent thinking. There’s ongoing conversation about where and how missional and emergent approaches converge and diverge.
And a tantalizing question asked at a July emergent gathering in San Francisco, according to Karen Sloan, a Presbyterian who’s the author of Flirting with Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths and who’s been helping to organize some of these events, was: “What is presbymergent’s agenda?” and does it intend to change the church?
Her answer: “I want to make more friends.”
What she meant, Sloan wrote at the presbymergent.org Web site, is that she sees her work as “contributing to a network of friends, of finding and connecting those seeking to be a part of reformed missional communities located in postmodern contexts.”
It’s like this: She doesn’t have the game plan.
She’s along for the journey, the conversations, the mutual searching for God. ...
Young evangelical Protestants continue to cling closely to their bedrock conservative values. Yet they are abandoning trust in the White House and straying from the Republican Party, according to an analysis that tracked waning sentiments from 2001 to 2007.
"An examination of the younger generation [those ages 18 to 29] provides evidence that white evangelicals may be undergoing some significant political changes," said Dan Cox, a researcher with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. "The question is whether these changes will result in a shift in white evangelical votes in 2008 and beyond." ...
Here is a shot of Mike Crawford leading the worship team. He tells me they have finished the recording studio in the basement of the building and Jacob’s Well in July and are already booked up until April.
Tim Keel was there but he saw me coming and scooted out the door before I could snap him (Actually I think he had some little ones to get home to bed.) Don't forget to buy his first book just being released Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos. It was a great time and King seemed to think the conference was going well.
We are making a location change for our gathering on Friday night. We will now be meeting at Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in Olathe KS (map).
We are gathering at 6:00pm Friday, September 21st to have a conversation with Tony Jones (National Coordinator for Emergent Village) about what is happening and the future of Emergent. Following our dinner conversation many of us are planning on making the short trip over to Mid-America Nazarene University for a 8:00pm worship service that will be lead by the folks at Jacob's Well.
We will be having dinner (or whatever you want to order) at Perkins restaurant on Santa Fe Street in Olathe. Take exit #218 from I-35 and the Perkins is located about 2 blocks east. See map here.
We are looking forward to a good discussion with Tony about what is happening with Emergent now and what the future looks like.
Hope to see you all there. If you have any questions, just let me know.
My flight gets in from Louisville at 6:00. I might see if I can get there but it ain't looking promising.
Sherry Britton in the NCD department in Louisville has asked us to share the following exciting news with all our presbymergent friends:
The director of Evangelism has just found $20,000 in his budget designated for emergent churches. He would like to receive proposals for the use of the funds.
Following are some additional details:
Funding is open to both churches and organizations as long as they are “PCUSA based.”
Deadline for submission of proposals is October 15th, and the award would be made in November.
They’re looking for a narrative about the program to be funded, the precise amount requested, and the expected outcome.
Proposals should be mailed to Sherry Britton, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202 or emailed to sbritton[at]ctr.pcusa.org or faxed to 502-569-8002.
Hmmm... Interesting idea but I confess that I wonder what will constitute "emergent churches" in the minds of the grant makers.
Bob Robinson of Vanguard Church has a link to a site with Emerging Church motivational posters created by Phil Johnson. These are just too funny! Here are some of my favorites.
Huntington, WV (HNN) – On August 5, 2007, First Presbyterian Church of Huntington will launch The Crossing, a cutting edge, Emerging worship gathering designed by and for young adults. The Crossing is a unique worship service in the Huntington area. The style of the worship gathering is Emerging worship, the newest movement in worship, which reflects the postmodern perspective of 18-35 year-olds. ...
Hmmm.... Frankly I think there are aleady too many people who worship Emergent. :) Seriously, I'm not sure there is such a thing as Emergent Worship. I'd be interested to know what this congregation's take is on what that means.
This weekend's Midwest Emergent Gathering, held July 20-21 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, was an event that I enjoyed participating in immensely. I was invited, by my friend Mike Clawson of up/rooted (Chicago), to answer several questions in a plenary session. I was billed as a friendly “outsider.” We laughed about this designation since many of my critics now assume that I am a “heretical insider” to Emergent. The truth is that neither is totally true. I am not so much a part of this movement, at least not in any recognizable or formal way, as I am a real friend of all things missional that sincerely address the basic questions that I feel very strongly must be faced by Christians within Western culture. ...
I had a plane ticket to Chicago this morning so I could attend the Emergent Midwest meeting that begins this morning. Change of plans. Yesterday I canceled my flight and hotel reservation. Truth be told, I expect I have attended my last Emergent event. Apart from some the conversations at these events that center on the spiritual disciplines and aspects of worship, these events coalesce largely around Anabaptist separatist piety and politically progressive advocacy. More power to them. I’m interested in neither and my input would only generate antagonism. It’s a waste of my time and their time.
The Emergent logo also comes of my blog. I’m not opposing Emergent. I expect to be in conversation and relationship with folks who are deeply involved in it. I have friends who attend Jacob’s Well locally and I have even been known to darken the doorway there occasionally myself. I expect I will frequent local cohort meetings. I simply don’t want to be construed as an Emergent advocate.
Update: I can see right away I need to clarify my vernacular. Emerging Church = a movement at work in the church and culture. Emergent (capital "E")/Emergent Village = An organization with a board and staff that conducts events. I'm whinning about Emergent not emerging church. :)
It is time again for another gathering of the KC Emergent Cohort. We are going to gather on Wednesday, July 18th at 8:00 pm at Tera Yakel’s home (please email Terayakel.at.hotmail.com for address, directions, etc) for dessert and drinks (feel free to bring your favorite beverage) and a conversation with Mike King about Postcolonial Africa.
We haven’t seen some of you in a few months and are looking forward to a great conversation.
In only four months, presbymergent has sparked a substantial amount of interest and participation. From a number of places within the Presbyterian Church (USA) – big churches, small churches, churches with long histories, new church developments, seminary students, seminary professors, renewal leaders, denominational officials, missionaries, elders, ministers, deacons, executive presbyters, and on and on – presbymergent has a wide range of folks engaging with Emergent. The purpose of this post is a follow-up to all this response. ...
I frequently read and hear people connected with Emergent (a sub-segment of the emerging church) protest the characterizatrion that they are a community of political leftists. I have seen McLaren, Samson and others chalk this up to people who simply aren't willing to embrace their new broader way forward and can see things only through the old lens of traditional left and right politics
Today I came across this YouTube clip (HT: Neil Craigan). It is Brian McLaren speaking at news conference called "Religious Progressives Left Behind." Please don't read past that to quickly and let me spell that out for you: p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e-s. And surely you did not miss the "double entendre" with the word "l-e-f-t."
In the clip below McLaren says:
"But I am an example of a growing shift from the monopoly of the Religious Right on a conservative ethos and in fact I think I’m an example that that monologue and domination by the Religious Right is becoming a fact of history rather than contemporary news. There’s a broader conversation even among Evangelicals and this new conversation can’t be fit into the old cold war categories of Right versus Left, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative."
Please get this. McLaren says he is part of a "...new conversation [that] can’t be fit into the old cold war categories of Right versus Left, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative" at a news conference in support of Religious Progressives Left Behind! McLaren also charactereizes conservatives and others who may disagree with progressive solutions to problems as only being concerned about a narrow range of issues becasue they do not subscribe to his progressive agenda.
They say a picture says a thousand words. When you look at this clip of McLaren speaking at the conference notice the distinguished gentlemen to the right of the screen. That is Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. I realize some of you from evangelical denominations may not be fully aware of who the NCC is. It is a coaliton of the tradtional mainline denominations that over the past forty years or so has been the most polarizing left-wing institution of mainline Christendom. It has supported communist candidates at home and backed communist regimes abroad. It championed the rise of the likes of Bobby Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe. It has rabidly and unflinchingly supported unrestricted abortion in any term for any reason, including partial birth abortion. The organization is so far left that Bill Clinton felt it necessary to keep his distance as most mainstream Democrats tend to do. The NCC is the most rivaled and despised religious organization among mainline conservatives and a symbolic icon of all that must be preserved by the mainline left.
So here is McLaren at a conference about "Religious Progressives Left Behind" with the leader of the organization that is the iconic symbol of relgious left-wing politics telling us that he represents a "broadening" discussion that is neither "liberal or conservative." Give me a break!
McLaren is a political progressive/lefty. Most of the high profile folks associated with Emergent give every evidence to me of being progressives/lefties. (Again, I distinguish Emergent from the broader conversation called emerging church.) I wish they would either own this reality and stop all the coy misdirections about their politics or drop the overt advocacy of leftist political solutions to problems and focus on generating a conversation. I will know we have a truly emerging leader when he or she gives a press conference and neither Jim Edgar nor Jim Dobson are thrilled to be standing behind him or her.
Anabaptists and the emerging church. Horse and carriage? Chicken and egg? Chalk and cheese? It has been suggested by some (Don Carson, Scot McKnight) that the emerging church in USA gravitates towards and resembles the early Anabaptist movement. I have mentioned this before. I generally agree with this and my own spiritual history contains strong Brethren (NZ) and Baptist leanings so it works out in practice for me.
Anabapist connections around the globe take different forms. ...
I think there is a lot of truth in this. Having grown up in a pietistic quasi-Anabaptist holiness environment, I see strong evidence of it. I think it is also interesting that the emerging church is all the rage at the Church of the Nazarene seminary here in Kansas City. While I value a number of things from my upbringing, the "come ye apart and be separate from the world" stuff is something that has never connected with me and was a primary reason I moved out of that stream as a young guy. It is part of the same ambivalence I have toward large swaths of the American emerging church scene.
