About

Presbymergent is the online community for those who live in both the Presbyterian (PCUSA) and Emergent/emerging church worlds and want to try and find a balance between the two.

We are pastors, lay people, seminarians, theologians, youth directors and people who generally care about both the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Emergent and the emergent conversation.

Feel free to join and post articles, questions and thoughts to the community. Grab the RSS feed and stay updated with information about presbymergent news. Post, discuss, share and support those who are working in and thinking about ministry in the margins.

We have put together a few brief guidelines for the use of this site. We don’t want to create a lot of “rules” for this site, but we thought it would be helpful to set a few parameters we thought would be helpful for this conversation.

1. It’s a Party – Keep it Fun, Keep it Beneficial
We’d like to invite you to our party. Whether you’re new to the emergent conversation or been involved for a few years, we are excited to have you here. Those of us who have created this site are eager for the possibilities of conversation here. We ask that you remember that it’s a party to explore how Emergent and the PC(USA) might work together. If your goal is simply to be argumentative or “rain on our parade”…well, please refrain from doing so. This doesn’t mean that our community will always agree on everything. Healthy discussion and disagreement can be very fruitful. Yet remember that we’re having a party here, not a debate.

2. The Party Hosts are PC(USA)ers – PC(USA)Requirement
While we at Presbymergent affirm in full the Emergent Village’s value of “Commitment to the Church in All It’s Forms” our intention for this site is facilitating a discussion specifically among those affiliated with the PC(USA) in some way. Our purpose in doing so is to focus the Emergent discussion to be helpful for those in the PC(USA). If you are not directly affiliated with the PC(USA), you are very welcome to read the material on the site and engage in conversation, but we are asking that “Contributors” be those with a direct affiliation to the PC(USA).

3. Adding Your Voice to the Party – Submitting Content
Anyone is welcome to add appropriate comments to any posts. However, because of our PC(USA) requirement, only those connected to the PC(USA) will be able to regularly post to the site. When you Register for the site, you will automatically be made a Contributor to the site. As a Contributor, you will be able to login to the site, write entries and submit them to be reviewed by Editors. Once posts are reviewed, they will be posted. We will try to keep the posting of new content to one or two posts per day (as long as content is submitted). So, if you write a post and don’t see it for a few days, just know that it will be reviewed and posted.

4. The Party Isn’t A Masquerade — Authentic Conversation
The best conversations (at parties or otherwise) are honest, personal, and direct. While face-to-face communication isn’t always possible in an online community, we think it’s important for participants to at least identify themselves by their real names, unless a valid reason for anonymity is given. More information and a tutorial on how registered users can set their names to display on posts and comments can be found here. We ask that visitors and unregistered users respect this desire for authenticity when commenting, as well.

5. More Parties – Enhance the Online Community
We believe that this site could become a great resource & support center for those involved in this conversation. That said, we also encourage you to try to find ways to enhance the community and discussion that takes place here. Send an email. Pick up your phone. Grab coffee with someone. Attend a local Emergent Cohort. Connect with each other at Presbytery or National events. And share with our online community your ideas for more parties.