Some Good McClaren Critique

The Bam's will be proud of me throwin' down some Wheaton-ness (unless this guy is an outcast of sorts).

Either way, I found his blurbs on our beloved B.M. (what poor initials!!) to be quite interesting.  Makes me want to put his latest book on top of a bunch of other books that I long to read without ever actually making enough time to read. 

A Six-Pack of House Churches

The Tall, Skinny Kiwi has posted six (well, seven) different types of house churches that we see emerging into the faith landscape. I believe EmDes would likely fit into the first category.

1 Off-the-grid house churches that intentionally do not want to be known, listed or be on anybody's radar. We find out about them by accident or through opinion polling or sampling, the kind of research George Barna does.

These OoCC (out of Church Christians) gatherings contain a lot of the God-yes-church-no crowd out there.

As a group, we tend to think that if you know about us, then we're doing something wrong! It seems that many of us are from backgrounds where we felt we had to "sell" our church to others, and we shy away from letting others know about the community we're involved with. But, interestingly, that has made it all the more intriguing to people! More listed, after the jump...

Recap 8.30.09

So, if I turn this in late can I still get partial credit? Oh how I remember asking that question. Again and again.

I thought our conversation was great (a week and a half ago), so despite being behind I thought I'd throw down some quick nuggets. As always, I'm paraphrasing like crazy - so be sure to correct me when I unintentionally misquote you. If I do it intentionally, and it offends you, hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice (for Republicans) and Control-Command-Eject (for Democrats).

• We started out discussing our favorite foods, from which the G-ski's emerged (HA!) as the food snobs. Maybe they should kick it up a notch from now on? Something with sea scallops in a white wine sauce will do just fine.
• We summarized our previous weeks discussion; specifically how our view of the deity of Christ affects our approach to "evangelism". What exactly "conversion" means to us in light of the topics in our current book.
• Stacey asks: if we don't know the gospel fully because of the language, or our understanding of it can be flawed, then how or what do we share with others? (you get an "A" for having such a good question)
  
• Joshua - it may not be as simple for some of us (anymore), to simply give people the message "Jesus died for your sins". There is so much wrapped up in a statement like this, that quick answers can confuse more than help.
  
• Ron - the words "Father Father why have you forsaken me" in Aramaic can be translated as "Father Father this is my destiny".
• Me - some of us may be feeling the shift that Phyllis Tickle describes in her book The Great Emergence (still on my "to read" list) in that our "authority" is moving from the Word (Sola Scriptura) to something new. For more reading on this, Greg Arthur at Emergent Nazarenes summarized this well at the beginning of the year. I'd also like to add that once on their site I realized I liked them, because of this post. Phyllis herself sums it up as well via the tube:
  
• Sarah - the gospel has been and is introduced in our culture as "informational" and not so much "relational". So we approach it as such, seeking from it a knowledge that can be fully known. This may be where we've gone wrong.
• Joy - when did conversion, or the beginning of salvation, become simply taking "the prayer"? (I really like this one Joy, we need to talk about this more)
• Ron / Jim / Joy - every person has a Bible, and that has been both a blessing and a curse.
• Jamie - sometimes we aren't going to fully understand, but we can live how we know we should (perfectly said Jamie, maybe this is what God is trying to tell us, that he can't be fully known!)

Take away: we could work on developing a different approach to the Bible; one that has more openness and humility. Seeking answers and closure from it may leave us frustrated.

Alright, so that's all for now. As you can see there was some good stuff that had to be launched into the blogosphere (eventually). Comment away!

Apparently... We're still alive. And the emergent video contest.

Wonderful conversation on Sunday on why we're still alive. Everyone's passionate responses revealed too much to write. But what really came out was the beauty of a group of people that desires to follow Jesus and not let anything stop that. It's great to have met such a group!

I am announcing the first ever Emergent Video Contest. What is that you ask?

I am going to ask any group that considers itself emergent or emerging to submit a two minute video showing what their gatherings are like. This is meant to show that we're not cohesive at all. We're a ragtag group of Jesus people who have many different expressions. Someone said on Sunday that essentially the tag emergent is nothing but a group of people engaging in a conversation, and this is true. I think a good way to show what this means is to show the differences in groups that consider themselves emerging/emergent.

Every contest has rules, so here's mine: It must be substantive. We need to get an idea of how your group works when we see your video. Also, include some sort of contact info at the end (your website, address, twitter, whatever). Anyone have any more criteria? Let me know.

Interested in participating? Ask me how! If everyone is comfortable with it, we'll do some sort of video of our group. But mainly I need help getting the word out and setting up a easy way to collect videos (any techie people out there?).

Oh, and the contest part. Well, contests require incentive. Can anyone think of someplace that would be willing to donate something that would be of value of a group of people as a prize? I'm thinking that there would be a random drawing for a winner.

Lastly, if you think this is a terrible idea to begin with, let me know and it might get 86ed.

Are We Dead Yet?

There's been a LOT of hubbub around the death of emergent. Is it real?

Everyone probably knows this started with Nick Feidler talking about the great disappointment. As someone who has been in the conversation for a while (although in the closet), but new to being involved, I can't say I see what everyone's talking about.

But there are points. How do we grow? How do we go beyond a conversation and into action?

Maybe this is the next point to what we were talking about as our introductions a few weeks ago, why are you here. Maybe a better question is, where is it going?

I think what Nick's counterpart, Josh, said is really key. The emergent church is dead because the church is dead. Or, at least some forms of it. But it's the deep communities, the fellowship, the groups of people living Christ out in the world and working together to understand more and more what that means. That is thriving, and I think the emergent conversation has done a lot to facilitate that.

Any thoughts? Let's hash it out in the comments!