Intro to Emergent
Sunday, August 5th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under
I recently was asked to do a presentation/seminar on the emerging church for an event sponsored by our presbytery coming up in late October.
We don’t currently have any emerging type churches in our presbytery, and while I’ve obviously invested myself personally in the emergent movement, the reality is that the church I serve is far from emerging as well….so I don’t have any local examples to point to. (I’m in East Iowa Presbytery.)
My question is: What would you cover in an hour long presentation and what types of resources would you use to give un-emerging presbyterians a real taste for what the emerging church is all about?
Comment by Shawn Coons on 6 August 2007:
I’d try to be descriptive with lots of examples. As a brief overview I really like Mark Scandrette’s themes of emerging church from Emergent Manifesto of Hope:
* significant interest in “community,” communal living, and renewed monastic practices
* an open-source approach to community, theology, and leadership that encourages flatter structures, networks, and more personal and collective participation
* revitalized interest in the social dimensions of the gospel of Jesus, including community development, earth-keeping, global justice, and advocacy–with a particular emphasis on a relationally engaged approach to these issues
* renewed interest in contemplative and bodily spiritual formation disciplines that have, historically, been important Christian practices
* a renewed emphasis on creation theology that celebrates earth, humanity, cultures, and the sensuous and aesthetic as good gifts of the Creator to be enjoyed in their proper contexts
* cultivation and appreciation of the arts, creativity, artful living, and provocative storytelling
* reexamination of vocation, livelihood, and sustainable economics
Comment by Michael Kruse on 6 August 2007:
Jim here are the three resources I would suggest in three different media:
An article from Christianity Today by Scot McKnight, Five Streams of the Emerging Church
The book Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.
An interview of Ryan Bolger of Fuller Seminary conducted by Alan Roxburgh. Click here.
Comment by Tom Robinson on 6 August 2007:
I did something like this back in May for our Presbytery here. I would be glad to send you by e-mail an attachment with what I tried to cover (only got to about half of it). I like Shawn’s list; what I did was to use Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs book on Emerging Churches, especially their top three patterns: identifying with Jesus, transforming secular space, and living intentionally in community. I think any description of what ‘emerging’ is would have to start with a brief description of postmodernism, and how we are not in the Christendom age anymore. Being good Presbyterians who love to talk, that should get them going for a while!
Comment by jim on 6 August 2007:
those are both great ideas and good places to start! Thanks. Tom, I’d be more than grateful if you would be willing to send along your draft.
Comment by Adam Walker Cleaveland on 6 August 2007:
Tom, is this something you think we could put on the site? If you’d be interested in just putting it on the site so people could download it - email me (cleave@gmail.com) and we’ll go from there.
Comment by Bruce Reyes-Chow on 6 August 2007:
All of these above, but I usually concentrate on trying to illustrate the shifts in worldview in order to point out that “church” is not just about methodology any longer but approach. And I ALWAYS use the article by that dashingly handsome emergent dork guy in San Francisco, the Myths of the Emergent church
Comment by Bob Pearson on 9 August 2007:
Jim,
We led a workshop at the Cascades Presbytery meeting in June.
I would be happy to share the PowerPoint with you.
The agenda I used was:
Introductions
Emerging Church - What is it? Who is it?
Examples of emerging churches
Presbytery level activities
Why is this important?
What can I do?
Issues to be dealt with
Opportunities for your church and you
Future actions
I also think that examples are more important than pedantics, images more important than words, but you have to start somewere.
We sat in a circle with a large low table at the center covered in colorful cloth, with things like water, bible, cross and candles on it as a focal center to the group.
We conducted a simple exercise. Ask everyone to tell what the Bible is to them, encourage them to be personal. We had pastors and elders in the group and got the most creative, personal stories you can ever imagine, from “my grand mother read the stories to me as a kid and I still hear the Bible in her voice”, to “it is my guide and companion, not a rule book or argument starter or settler”. All spoke their truth and all blessed each other by sharing their stories. That is emerging to me.
Bob
Comment by John Shuck on 16 August 2007:
Shawn,
What you wrote sounds a great deal like the church I presently serve.
Bob,
You wrote:
“We conducted a simple exercise. Ask everyone to tell what the Bible is to them, encourage them to be personal. We had pastors and elders in the group and got the most creative, personal stories you can ever imagine, from “my grand mother read the stories to me as a kid and I still hear the Bible in her voice”, to “it is my guide and companion, not a rule book or argument starter or settler”. All spoke their truth and all blessed each other by sharing their stories. That is emerging to me.”
I would say that is emerging to me as well.
I posted here to challenge Jim. He appears to have almost dis-invited me from the emergent conversation with his comments on Michael Kruse’s blog.
Just because I don’t comment frequently does not mean I am not interested or that I do not read what is written here.
What I thought emergent means is that you don’t label people and then write them off.
What I find interesting is that we talk about what is “emerging”–well it is right in front of us. A lot of congregations, including mine, are doing what you seem to want to create already.