Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Deep in the Heart of Texas

A week or so ago I spent several days, Thursday though Saturday, in Fort Worth Texas. Had the privilege of speaking to a group of young adults; leaders, students, church planters, and people interested in the 'emerging conversation.' They asked me to speak on 'emerging' church/worship as part of the regional assembly for the denomination Missiongathering is associated with: www.disciples.org.

Besides having a chance to see my friend Scott along the way, who I haven't seen for WAY too long... The gathering was truly a conversation, and a good one at that... Lots of questions from young people wrestling with their faith in a culture of transition....

Great band, and leadership from Suzanne Castle-Roland and some of the folks from The Search- an emerging gathering at TCU. Got to finally meet in person several memebers of our denomination's Young Adult Commission: www.disciplesconnect.com,
www.docya.org ... as well as many more good people... Also went to an interesting break-out session on 'Emerging Evangelism.'

One of those who helped organize this event is starting to blog on it here: www.disciplesx.com


And then there were the inevitable (friendly) challenges from some who asked, 'what's so bad about church as we currently know it?'...

And, 'how can we reach the increasingly large segment of people outside of 'church culture' with the message of God's grace, but not change?'

My answer, predictably, was... 'you can't.'
Change is inevitable.
If we truly are in dialogue with the people, ideas, and culture of our context... we will change. Some want the results of change without the pain of change. But it just doesn't work that way.

As our faith communities learn to become more and more incarnational we will affect, and be affected by our culture. Sure we could close ourselves off, and never experience the danger that that entails... but wouldn't we just be trading the changes of today for the changes (now institutionalized) of a previous time?

As long as there are humans involved, communities will shift and evolve.
...And being a community that builds it's identity on not changing isn't the same as remembering and celebrating the good of the past... and then discovering a community identity in the life giving, sending and expanding, mission of the Kingdom.

Monday, July 30, 2007

So I'm rockin' the suit and tie for Easter,
eating at a fancy restaurant...
And I go straight for the kid's buffet!
That's a PB & J sandwich in my hand.

This picture actually says a lot about me.


Wikiklesia

The first volume... Voices of the Virtual World (for which I wrote a chapter) is out in ebook form now! Look for soft cover in late August... and there are MP3s of each author reading their chapter (though mine needs to be tweaked a bit, so will be up soon).
Purchase here: www.lulu.com/wikiklesia
Wikiklesia website: www.wikiklesia.org

Proceeds go towards the Not For Sale Campaign to help end slavery/human trafficking.
www.notforsalecampaign.org

There are many great authors involved, including: Scot McKnight, Rex Miller, Andrew Jones (aka Tallskinnykiwi), Peter Rollins, Stephen Shields, Kester Brewin, and Doug Pagitt... So it's cool to be involved!

The soft cover will include endorsements by Alan Hirsch (co-author with Mike Frost of Shaping of Things to Come... best book on ecclesiology/missiology in years!), and the executive editor of Wired magazine.

Look for many more great things from this project...

And So It Goes...

My first blog post here...
Not much to this yet,
but more to come.

Peace Out!