You can also email us at nunidecommunity@gmail.com

A bit about us…

We are a worshiping community in Old Louisville seeking to be the Body of Christ to our neighbors. We wrestle with today’s church and its inability to transform the lives of those that find themselves on its shores. We seek new ways to be an incarnation body to the world. We desire to be free of the chains of differences and celebrate diversity, in all of its beauty. We answer the call on our lives in service to our communities as we endeavor to be the church and cease doing church.

We gather to create a safe place for all to explore faith, grace, love, and compassion.

We are not a “church” founded in bricks and mortar. We are a worshiping community founded in the principles of Gods unbiased love and never ending grace.

We are not just Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, or Catholic…or even Christian. We are seeking to be Christ-like, sans all the religious pomp and circumstance. We subscribe to a belief in God as witnessed in Jesus the Christ. We are inclusive and open to all. All are welcome…come.

I am a Presbyterian minister, social worker, and writer, and I’ve facilitated www.spiritualbookclub.com for nearly ten years now. I am a parish associate pastor at First Pres-Normal, IL. We also have a local spirituality book club group that meets in Barnes & Noble once a month, makes meals for the homeless, collects items for women in prison, etc. We now have a new blog www.spiritualbookclubblog.blogspot.com which I think would be of interest to the Presbymergent crowd.

We’re collecting interviews to highlight the spiritual lives of real people on this blog. If you’d like to be highlighted, please email me your responses to the below questions and a photo, and we’ll post them. Enjoy reading what’s already posted. We hope to get diversity both of opinion and geography, and so far we have responses from friends in India, England, Australia, etc.

Peace,
Susan Baller-Shepard

Real People, Real Lives, Real Spirituality…
Your Name (you can choose, you can put your full name or just first name):
Where you live (vague as you wanna be):
What you do as a vocation or avocation?
Your two favorite books:
Your two favorite CDs:
Why you are interested in spirituality?
Your favorite quote:
Your favorite web sites:
Your hero?
A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?
A place in the world where you feel spiritually “connected?”
Please include a photo of yourself, or something that represents you, so we can upload it to the blog.

I will be the first person to admit that even our lowest standard of living is higher than many countries average daily income levels. We are not the worst. We are also sitting atop a volatile mountain of debt, spending, and imaginary power cells. What the fuck are we living for? Where is the service to Christ? Where is the transformation? We are dying as a church in the west and people say they care but they are not supporting it.

I wrote this in response to Carol’s post. I am not a pastor, but a seminarian on the verge of graduation. I am terrified to go into ministry. All of the fears you spoke of add to my anxiety. What shall I do to ensure I can afford to raise a family or even serve a congregation? I heard far too much, “trust God! It is a matter of faith.” I agree trusting God is the beginning. Where is the practice of trust when it comes to financial support from the congregations? Folks will complain, but they will not support.

We are all to blame in the decline. We are part of the problem. This stance of “trust God and if you do not then you have no faith” removes the responsibility from congregations, the Body, and all have in supporting the church. We do not train pastors for free. Is it fair and good stewardship to expect these individuals to shoulder the cost of training that is required?

We have to pay 80 dollars per ordination exam — that is 400 dollars if you can pass these antiquated monsters in the first shot. Not many do! Then there are the psychological evaluations, anywhere from 600 to 2500 dollars. Then the cost of seminary itself, from 10,000 to 15,000 per year for tuition and an additional 10,000 or so to live each year. That is about 60,000 to 75,000 in debt to begin your service with. We need to be smarter with this. If we say we are concerned with the death of the church then we need to step up and support.

The day of the full time pastor maybe behind us. I for one think it is. We must seek sustainable ways to minister in the context to which we find ourselves. Does this mean we have to do away with seminaries and the education they provide? No, the seminary education is foundational to service in the reformed tradition. We must change our lives to live responsibly and centered on Christ.

I used to joke that I wanted to open the First Presbyterian Church of Holy Rollers Bowling Alley. I am no longer joking. Is a coffee house, pub, bowling alley, or restaurant the answer? It is sustainable and attracts folks. In some areas it would respond to the desire and need of a distanced population. It would provide a place for community, care, warmth, outreach, and financial resistance. We just need folks to grasp the idea. Like one of my favorite groups would said, “Rage full on!”

In conjunction with a new way we can inventory our stuff and ask: Do we need the ipod? The newest phone? The cable TV? The two cars? The this or the that? All of this stuff is nice. What does it say about what you live your life for and for whom you live for? I am a f’king hypocrite right along with many of us. I crave the technologies! The Apple computers. The name brand running shoes, the jeans, the shirts, the designer vitamins and food. I love to eat out and am overweight and a burden to this world. I do not practice all that I preach. I need grace, forgiveness, and courage to be what I have witnessed in this world. To stand against the tyranny of consumerism and stereotypes, and hopelessness.

There is a better way. Please pray about it and pray that we can find the way to the cross and sit at the feet of Jesus. The rebel rousing Jesus that roundhouse kicks the money lenders out of a house of Prayer. WTFWJD?

How and to what extent does your congregation utilize new media as an implement for evangelism?

I know that we blog, and that we’re open to integrating media into new forms of worship. This is good. But that we have connectivity within our respective fellowships doesn’t speak to how deeply we utilize internet media as a tool for bringing those outside our churches/faith communities into relationship with us.

I’ve been encouraging my little church to view our suite of web-based materials as a support for relational and affinity-based outreach. Between our website, a Google groups, a YouTube channel, and my own compulsive text and video bloggery, there’s a tremendous level of congregational and pastoral transparency.

The issue, as I see it, is moving those essentially passive media into a more engaged and active mode. The potential seems great, but I’m not sure what to do other than working to teach and empower my flesh-and-blood congregation to view our blogging and vlogging as a vital resource for our outreach efforts.

For those of you who’ve been actively using new media as part of your congregational life…how have you seen this played out? Are there any good best-practices resources in this area?
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As a side note, as I reviewed the Categories to tag this post, I noticed that neither “Evangelism” nor “Outreach”…nor any other variant of those concepts…seems to be present. Hmmm.

Hello, my name is Dennis Sanders. I’m an ordained Disciples of Christ pastor living in the Twin Cities. I’m between churches and working as the Communications Specialist for the Presbytery of the Twin Cities area in the interim. I am feeling called to plant a new church in the emergent mold, and I’m looking for people who want to join in and discern with me about this. Do you know of any Presbymergents that live in the Twin Cities who might be interested in talking and praying and doing all this?