You are here: Home / Archives for Emergent

Emergence Christianity: Is Emergent a Conversation or a Movement?

January 13, 2013 by 5 Comments

Emergence-ChristianityA panorama shot of Emergence Christianity ’13: Memphis

For as long as I’ve been involved with Emergent, we’ve always struggled to identify what exactly “Emergent” is. 10 years ago, when I was at the very first Emergent Convention in San Diego, it was a discussion that seemed to be never ending. Eventually, people involved got tired of having the same conversation over and over, but whenever we held “onramp” discussions or others joined the conversation, the first thing people wanted to know was “what is Emergent?”

Whenever pressed for an answer, the common response for years has been that we are a conversation; a conversation among friends. Emergent has always been very interested in generative friendships (talked about here), and really, that’s how the whole thing got started. It was a group of friends who found themselves in similar situations in their lives, asking similar questions and looking for new answers.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Emergent, Ministry, PC(USA), Presbymergent Tagged With: , , ,

Hope for the Church: “I’m not dead…!”

January 10, 2013 by 7 Comments

I’m here in Memphis for the Emergence Christianity event with Phyllis Tickle and friends. I was lucky enough to be asked to be a part of a group of people spending the day with Phyllis on Thursday, as we brainstorm about emergence Christianity and the future of the church. I’m so looking forward to the conversations we’ll have. As I was thinking about that conversation and being here for the event, I tweeted this:

I’m hoping that this week is informative, generative, hopeful, and imaginative about the future of the church. It’s not dead yet… [link]

And I think that’s true…we’re not dead yet. The church isn’t dead yet. There is hope and beauty and potential with the church…but as I mentioned in my previous post, we have to be ready and willing to do things differently. And…although the church isn’t dead yet, I do think it would be good for all of us (pastors, seminarians, professors, lay people) to realize that we are headed down that track, and we need to wake up to that reality. The church is often acting a bit too much like the “almost dead” man in the Monty Python clip below:

Can’t you hear the church saying these things? “I’m not dead. I’m not dead! I’m not! I’m getting better! I don’t want to go on the cart. I feel fine! I think I’ll go for a walk. I feel happy! I feel happy!”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Emergent, Ministry, PC(USA) Tagged With: , , ,

Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity: A Review

May 11, 2012 by 8 Comments

I’ve spent the past week in Washington DC at the “Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity” conference. It’s been awhile since I’ve been at a Continuing Ed event and it was a great chance to get to connect with some friends (old and new), do some networking and hear from some great folks. I thought I’d just share some highlights and then offer a few comments.

Best Presenter: Patricia Lyons
While I struggled at first to keep up with her pace and excitement as she shared about her conversion to Harry Potter, her presentation was definitely a highlight of the conference. She was a presenter who made a relevant presentation about how to read the language of our culture to communicate good news to children and youth today. Add to that the fact that she was hilarious and wearing a Harry Potter robe and had a wand…a great presentation.

Best Workshop: Michael Novelli and Rebekah Lowe – The Art of Bible Storying
Michael and Rebekah offered a wonderful interactive and participatory workshop after the conference officially ended. It was based on Michael’s work on bible storying (his book is “Shaped By the Story“). I think this was a great way to end the conference, where we actually learned about a new way of doing youth ministry (which I think is what many were hoping for at the conference). If you’re not familiar with Michael’s work, be sure and check out Echo. And Rebekah has done some amazing work translating his work specifically for children’s ministry.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Emergent, Ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,