Mainline Emergent/s: Practice & Presbyterianism
Karen Sloan and I had our seminar, entitled “Practice & Presbyterianism: Emergence as Reformation” today at Mainline Emergent/s. We began the seminar with a word-association activity: we asked everyone to think about what words or phrases came to mind when they thought of 1) Presbyterians, 2) Emergent and 3) Presbyterian Emergent (Presbymergent). Some of the answers we received were very interesting. Here are the lists:
Presbyterian
- Blue Hair
- Scottish heritage
- Antique Roadshow
- Discord
- Decent and in Order
- Order and Ardor
- Geneva Tabs
- Rich tradition
- Robert McAfee Brown
- Connectionalism
- Family
- Reformed & Always Being Reformed
Emergent
- Goatees
- Untucked Shirts
- Uncomfortable
- Risky
- Change
- Untidy
- Friends
- Incarnational
- Self-centered
- Young People
- Missional
- Organic
- Fresh
- New Growth
- Practice
- Forward
- Homogenous
- Arrogant
- Attitude
- Limited Geography
Presbymergent
- Oxymoron
- Reformed and Always Being Reformed
- Connectional
- Anti-Connectional
- Paradoxical
- Pragmatism
- Transformation
- Roots & Wings
- Old & New
- Embracing Polarities
- Ritual
It was very interesting to hear some of the thoughts of people in the room, especially with “Emergent.” Karen and I then shared some of our stories, I shared some about being loyal radicals and Karen then shared some case studies of PC(USA) churches who are interacting with Emergent Village and the emerging church movement in a variety of ways. We had around 80 people at the seminar and many wanted to continue the conversation.
I think for many of the people in the room, their questions revolved around some of the Emergent worship practices and issues of Presbyterian polity. I had put together a handout (available here) that listed off some ways in which the Presbyterian Book of Order was actually more open to new ways of doing things than we may have previously thought. It also gave an example for an alt.worship service I led in the Princeton University Chapel that was organized according to the traditional Presbyterian order of worship.
Overall I think it was a good conversation starter, and I think many people will be continuing on with the conversation at here at presbymergent, which I hope continues to grow into more and more of a resource center and conversation hub for PC(USA)ers who are open to the Emergent conversation.
Comment by Neal Locke on 1 February 2007:
Adam, I think the handout would make a great addition to the “resources” page on this site. Another resource might be a link to the Wikipedia entry on the Emerging Church, or something similar for those just figuring things out.
Comment by Neal Locke on 1 February 2007:
Are HTML links disabled in comments?
Comment by jim on 1 February 2007:
I enjoyed hearing a bit of your story yesterday.
It seemed clear to me, after your session, that there were two types of folks at the conference: Those who have a clear interest and are already talking the emergent language and those for whom the whole thing is foreign, alien and they just don’t like it.
Don’t know what to do with that, but the second group is the same thing we’ll see more intensely at the presbytery level.
Comment by Adam Walker Cleaveland on 1 February 2007:
Neal, it does seem that they are in this post…
They seem to be working fine for me in this post:
http://presbymergent.org/2007/01/30/progressive-and-emergent/
I wonder what the problem is…
Comment by Presbymergent Admin on 1 February 2007:
Neal - I fixed your first comment and made it actually link to the Wikipedia entry. Not sure what happened but when I looked at the code, it was:
< a > Emerging Church < / a >
There was no href=”URL” in the first link attribute…maybe that was the problem?
Comment by Neal Locke on 1 February 2007:
Hmmm…I typed the full URL in by hand–i wonder if the new WordPress comment system has a built in Rich Text editor that strips html elements from non-editor users? There’s got to be a better place for me to test this out, I’m sure, but here goes:
This should be a link topresbymergent.org typed out as http://www.presbymergent.org
Comment by Neal Locke on 1 February 2007:
Ok, definitely working now. I don’t know what was wrong with the first two (but probably “User Error”).
Comment by Tom Robinson on 1 February 2007:
Many, many thanks for posting your thoughts about worship and emergent on the web for folks like me who couldn’t make the conference but who are very interested in continuing the conversation. I was especially interested because I am currently working on my D.Min. degree (out of Columbia, by the way) and am thinking about doing something on worship in the postmodern church. For a modern guy in his mid-50’s, that’s a stretch; but I really feel that the church needs to be open to new ways of celebrating God’s presence in our lives. Any tips about books to read, sites to check out in that regard? Thanks again.
Comment by Adam Walker Cleaveland on 1 February 2007:
Tom - yah, there are quite a few things to check out. Look on the Resources page for the book “Alternative Worship” by Jonny Baker - a great book. You should also check out his site.
You will also find links on the Resource Page to photos of alt.worship gatherings I’ve helped to create.
One other site to check out is alternative worship.org - tons of great resources and photos.
Comment by Tom Livengood on 3 February 2007:
I’d like to follow-up on Jim’s insight about there being “two types of folks at the conference”.
As one who clearly identifies himself as an “emergent type”, I was very disheartened by the comments of those for whom the emergent conversation is foreign/alien (using Jim’s words).
Hostility - that is one word that comes to mind after sitting in on Adam and Karen’s break-out session. I believe that those who are interesed in the emergent conversation within the mainline tradition need to be aware of this potential hostility (particularly as “emergent” is entering into the mainstream).
Thoughts…