Troy Bronsink and I led a workshop called “Emerging Worship Environments” at the Alt7 Conference at Montreat this week. If you’re interested in downloading a PDF version of our presentation, you can do so here. Also, here are some additional resources that you may find beneficial if you’re interested in emerging culture and worship environments.« Continue »
The New Christians: A Review
UPDATE: Book giveaway. I have 4 copies of “The New Christians” to send to the first four people who email me with a picture of Tony’s footwear of choice while he’s on the road.
Prior to reading The New Christians, I have always told everyone that Pete Rollins’s How (Not) to Speak of God has been the best emergent church book written yet. I’ve read tons of stuff from Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Tim Keel and others, but I thought Pete did an excellent job of presenting the theological and philosophical foundation (or, I suppose that would be a non-foundation) for Emergent, as well as showing very practical ways in which that worked itself out in his own faith community, Ikon.
However, there is a new kid on the block: Tony Jones’s The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. I received an advance uncorrected proof of this book a few months ago, and I read it in a day and a half I think. However, I just got the hardcover review copy in the mail the other day, and let me just say that in addition to being a great book, it just feels like a great book. The design and layout of the book is impressive, and other than the publisher spelling Dan Kimball’s name as “Don Kimball” – it looks great.
Trinitas hosts Alternative Worship Installation in Atlanta
My friend Jake Myers is planting a church in Little 5 Points (a community in Atlanta) and the church community is called Trinitas Church. He and I were co-conspirators in creating, .bE: What do I love when I love my God?, an alternative worship installation. Unlike other .bE worship gatherings I’ve led before, this one was more of a worship installation than a worship service. Our gracious host was Grandma Lukes in Little 5 Points, which allowed us to have an amazing venue. We were able to use the rear portion of the cafe for our worship space, and the front served as a great space to have refreshments, fellowship and debriefing.
Jake was the mastermind behind the text/content and I helped create the design and aesthetics. The worship installation was based around the question, “What do I love when I love my God?” Worshipers were guided through thinking about their questions of God, self, Other(s) and the world. The content was pretty text-heavy, but I think it worked; it was heavily influenced by Augustine, Meister Eckhart, Jack Caputo, Richard Kearney, Kierkegaard, Ricoeur, Derrida, Levinas and Rashi. Jake and I both want this to be an open-source venture, so if you’d like to check out the text for each of the stations, you can download the Word document here.
I posted photos on Flickr here and if you want to see more photos from previous alt.worship gatherings I’ve helped facilitate, go here.
Communal(?) alt.worship
Through my field ed., I had the chance to offer .bE at the Princeton University Chapel last week. If you want to see some photos, check out the alt.worship photo album here. Someone questioned that the worship experience concerned the apparent individualistic-nature of it. « Continue »
