loyal radicals…
Online registration is now open for the 2009 Festival of Theology & Reunion, March 15-18, at Louisville Seminary. Lecturers include Diana Butler Bass, Marcus Borg, and Brian McClaren, speaking on the theme “New Ways of Being Church.”
To learn more and/or register, visit www.lpts.edu/reunion.
Catechetical formation is often underutilized in the North American context maybe with exception to the Roman Catholic Church. To be sure, catechesis is not very popular these days at least not in the ecclesiastical circles in which I run. To the point: I am exploring the usefulness of catechesis in an emerging church context as well as exploring the possibility of putting together a catechism for missional formation to use within our faith community. I would like to utilize it on an intergenerational level so my hope is to make it as accessible as possible. I am also interested in making this a “communal” effort by reaching out to the Presbymergent blogosphere. I would love to hear your reflections on the following points:
Please leave your responses/reflections as comments on this post. Thanks!
Greetings all!
I trust folks are doing well. As you know I have not posted anything on this blog in a while. I did this not to distance myself from presbymergent as you are all individually wonderful folks, but only to help remove as many stumbling blocks as possible for folks trying to get to know me as me. In any case, over the past months or so, a few questions have risen to the forefront and have included some folks from this community that I think are worthy of some attention, so I figured I would ask here.
The most pressing question for me right now in all of this was prompted by Phyllis Tickle at The Great Emergence Event in Memphis this past week where she challenged those engaged in the emergent conversation over the past 10 years to mature and think about what this REALLY looks like in the next stages of life. She challenged those within the mainline churches to play our role in this transition and for those outside of mainline traditions to listen and interact. So what do we say: what does this whole think look like as a structure, institution, etc.? Is that even the right question and if not, what is?
My challenge is this, much like Beau Weston in his paper, Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment has asked some good questions, albeit with controversial conclusions, what will this community offer to the open source nature of the future beyond a critique of the current culture and structure of the church, no matter how good it may or may not be? I certainly have some ideas that I will talk about as appropriate, but if there is any real movement in the church that is worth it’s salt, how does it mature into being an effective agent of change and transformation beyond those who are part of the movement?
Said gauntlet has been thrown, where and when will this plane land? You tell me and us.
Now, I in no way to post this as any kind of mandate as moderator - how stupid would I have to be to think anyone, here or anywhere else would respond - but as one who sits in some great places of conversation about the future of the church. Your voices are just as important as the voices from those of differing worldviews, so by engaging in this, you add your words to the narrative that we are discovering together - yeah, kind cheesy, but true - for we can never forfeit the voice, authority and power that each of us has been given to our care.
I see this as more of a challenge, nudging and yearning for the entirety of the church to enter into the many interactions that are happening in countless places in the church so that together we may find a way forward that aligns with God’s intentions for us all.
If you do decide to write something, please send me the link and/or watch out for a blog posting that will lift up some of these ideas as you can just send a trackback there.
Peace out, as the kewl kids say . . . or do they not say that any more ;-(
PS: Anyone planning on organizing some planned presbymergent spontaneity at THE BIG TENT in June in Atlanta?
PPS: I am ripping off Bloggers Unite and going to try doing a Presbyterians Connect monthly blogging challenge, so stay tuned and watch for the announcement at The Mod Blog.
Those of you who know me or have read my blog before might remember that I spent probably one of the most exciting and challenging summers of my life working in Philadelphia at Broad Street Ministry. And if you have had the privilege (hah!) of meeting me since then, you likely have heard that church come up at LEAST one or two times. Because it was really extraordinary. It was hard, of course, being in a place where you are brought face to face everyday with everything that lies in the road on the way to the Kingdom, but it was also satisfying and powerful to be tackling those stones as a church rather than tiptoeing around them and pretending they didn’t exist ( I have experienced churches that DO that. not so faithful, in my own opinion.)
Anyways, I am writing all of this because, as I sit here in the 30th Street train station in Philadephia, after an amazing weekend in the city (yes, I commute here once a month or so now, and always go to BSM it really IS that good), I find myself reflecting back upon those experiences, as well as wanting to share with those who might like a listen.
More importantly, I am writing to get the word out. Last year Broad Street began thinking and dreaming of a Seminary Immersion experience, a program in which seminary students could take a year off and live and work and learn in the melting pot that is BSM. It was a great idea, but a long-shot, but, as improbable as much of the magic at BSM, it has happened. Broad Street is now accepting applications for a newly minted Seminary Immersion Program, and I must say that I am jealous that I will no longer be a seminary student when it begins (if I were, I would have applied the minute the application was up). I had the opportunity to sit in on some of the planning meetings for this program, and I can vouch for the fact that it will be real and it will be life-changing. The folks running the program are amazing folks, the sort that every seminary student should have the opportunity to work and learn with, and they have some amazing plans in store.
Here is what BSM has to say about the program:
The formation that will occur during this experience will be unique for each participant, but will also bear the unique marks of the contexts which fuel it: an inclination toward collaboration, a taste for risk-taking, openness toward the other, and a holy impatience for the realization of the Kingdom of God. BSM House Alumni/ae will be unleashed with a sense for what is possible within local churches, and with skills and networks that will help them translate dreams into first steps once they graduate from seminary.
So if you are thinking of doing a full-time internship, or need a break from seminary for a year, or feel possibly called to check it all out, PLEASE check the program out. Or let your friends know, or your Field Education office at your Seminary. It is COMPLETELY worth considering taking the leap. I did it, and I have never been quite the same since (in a good way!)
Presbymergent will occasionally receive emails from pastors who would like us to post their CIFs and get the word out to some emergent-types. A brief description of the position is below, with a link to their CIF.
First Presbyterian Church of Sioux City, Iowa is looking for an Associate Pastor to engage the families of our church as followers of Jesus Christ and help them to shine the light of his love through their lives in the world. We’re a fairly traditional downtown church eager to see how God will reform us as a mission outpost for the kingdom through friendship, discipleship, and acts of love.
The following is a letter that I sent to my “existing” PC(USA) congregation this week. My church—like many within the PC(USA) is filled with people who often do not share the same politics or social worldview. Because it so often succumbs to the whims of a culture that tries to divide and create dichotomies the Existing Church has struggled when it comes to understanding how to deal with deep divisions. I believe the Emerging Church represents a Third Way. Hopefully this letter helped to demonstrate that.
Grace and Peace to You All,
Election 2008 has finally come to an end. For those of us who have been suffering from election fatigue these past few weeks, it’s a welcome relief, to tell you the truth.
But now, after months and months of being made aware of all the ways Americans seem to be divided, we will begin to hear (and quite rightly) that we must come together. In president-elect Obama’s victory speech last night he spoke directly to this when he quoted Abraham Lincoln, who also presided over a divided nation. “We are not enemies but friends,” Lincoln said after the Civil War, “though passion may have strained…it must not break our bonds of affection.” These are fine words. We can’t escape the sense of history in that they were spoken by an African-American who has been elected President of the United States in Lincoln’s home state, and in Chicago, the very city where Lincoln won the nomination for President. They are fine words, and historic. But the road to unity is going to be difficult, and there are many among us who are anxious and fearful of what lies ahead.
As the Church, the Body of Christ, we need to lead the way in the healing that must begin after such a long and contentious political season. How can we do this? We can first recognize that as the Church we are called to “unity in diversity,” through the power of the Spirit of Christ in us and all around us. The Body of Christ is diverse. There are people in our own church—the First Presbyterian Church of Eustis—who probably voted for different candidates. There are members and friends of our congregation who gather together each Sunday for worship, sing together in the choir and serve side by side in mission and ministry, who may not agree at all when it comes to politics. I know that today I am the pastor of a church where some of my flock are rejoicing over the victory of president-elect Barack Obama, and some are not.
Legend has it that one afternoon on November 22nd, Presbymergent founder and about-to-be-ordained-minister Adam Walker Cleaveland was trying to come up with a statement of faith for his Ordination service. So he did the usual thing any 20-something uber geek would do…he asked his twitter friends how long a statement of faith should be?
After many responses of the usual sort (one page, two page, red page, blue page) fellow presby-geek (and World of Warcraft guru) Shawn Coons tweeted back : “instead of a statement of faith, how about a twitter of faith? Anyone else up to the challenge?” And so it began…
Here’s the challenge:
UPDATE: Adam, Mark, Chad, Wendy, Cobus, Matthew, Makeesha, Geoff, Adele, Drew, Cameron, Dan, Greg, John, Ryan, Angela, John, Greg, Molly, Matt, Dave Zimmerman from InterVarsity Press, and our distinguished moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, have all posted this to their blogs. If you blog it, let us know in the comments so we can link to it here, and feel free to use the above image (designed by Adam) for your post.
UPDATE: There’s now a facebook page and corresponding event, too. Even if you’re not on Twitter, you can click here to scroll through the many TOFs that have been filling up the web in the past few hours.
Somewhere out there is an incredibly right person for the call listed below. For five years, while in seminary and then searching for my first call (2000-2005), this church community was my own home. I love the people here dearly and cannot more wholeheartedly encourage pastors who fit the search descriptors to apply. — Karen
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First Presbyterian Church of Altadena (CA) is looking for a pastor who is:
We have an almost 100 year heritage as a Japanese American church and now Sunday mornings have 45% diversity. We are next to Pasadena, thus, enjoy the resources and challenges of this urban-edge location. More info at altadenapresbyterian.org.
I was born with glaucoma, an eye disease that can result in blindness that typically only afflicts the elderly. I read once that only 1 in 100,000 infants have the propensity to be born with glaucoma. Pretty slim odds, to be sure. Still, I was born with it. When the genes and chromosomes of my parents joined forces the resulting union contained a blight, and that blight nearly left me blind.
The surgery to save my sight was very new in 1969, and only two doctors in the United States were doing it. Funny. It’s outpatient surgery now, but then it was pretty serious and fairly experimental. After all was said and done, I ended up legally blind in one eye—which is better than how things could have turned out, but not ideal. Though I am legally blind in my right eye, I can still see things like shadows, colors and shapes that I can sometimes identify. It’s a whole lot better than nothing, I suppose. Because of its blindness, my right eye tends to wander a bit, and wants to peer in all directions. When I was young, the eye doctors told my parents it had to do with the muscles around my eye, and how they weren’t going to develop properly. Consequently, I grew up dealing with a slightly crossed eye, a malady that resulted in some teasing, a few wonderful nick-names (Cross-Eyed Freak, is my fave) and more than one ruined school picture.
Some time ago, Ryan and I Netflixed the documentary The World According to Sesame Street. When I opened the red and white envelope and saw the title, I assumed that my (then) soon-to-be-husband, knowing my love of all things Muppets, picked out some impossibly cute children’s programming that would surely take my mind off of impending finals and wedding planning.
Instead, what he got was a documentary following how Sesame Street translates into different countries and continents.
Unlike much of American television, which is syndicated, dubbed, and shipped overseas, Sesame Street reflects the culture in which it’s broadcast. The “fundamentals” are the same-muppets and human beings co-habitate peacefully in a neighborhood, reading, spelling, and celebrating numbers while teaching and learning lessons of mutual respect and understanding. Sesame Street is no urban utopia, but does offer a model of what can truly occur when community is a truth recognized. Read More
