1.@ clay: what is church for? I think a clearer way of shaping this is to consider church as a verb- those Spirit filled moments (synchronicities, to borrow Jung) when Word and Sacrament are ordered to join and anticipate God’s purposes in creation. This is more incarnational and avoids the platonic urge to pre-design an air-tight formula.

2.@ clay: can deep shifts happen in a 1/3 of the congregation? I can;t think of a time when transformation does not originate in “practices” or “postures” that catch on. In other words, a few folks begin to “do” and “act” differently and their minds are then transformed. Until a few more join them. And then a few more. So why not start with this third and invite them to include those from the other 2/3rds to reflect with them on what is happening. The “traditional” services do not need to change their style to join this more participatory way. An imaginative Traditional Worship Leader like Tony describes is a great way for this to start.

3.@ david: what is contemporary? David, most american church goers who consume pre-fabricated worship formats see contemporary as a closed genre. It is the byproduct of CCM’s successful branding in the 80s and 90s. Try introducing the word “contemporaneous” (remember this from Greek tenses- I believe it was Aorist) and asking how does the worship style or material we use in worship come from the actual everyday world around us (you can grab You-Tube videos, newspaper clippings, popular music, folks music, movie quotes, and styles/chord progressions). We can learn from the Word of God whom/which we follow into the world (C-67) as much as from a Word of God remembered.

4.@ steve: Interesting to pair up “force feeding” and “calling.” CCM and denominational(or ecumenical) top down curriculum has created a consumptive Christian way. How do we reverse this tendency and equip worshipppers to produce, to make their own testimony? Borrowing some of Tom Wright’s pneumatology, the community is sent gifts from the Spirit almost like the Israelite sampled fruit from the promised land brought by the spies. As such, the fruits of enthronement, adoration, and lamentation are gifts from the promised eschaton for worshipers to taste and enjoy. So worship is born out of calling and not out of a top down “force feeding.”

5.@ tony: You wrote, “gatherings exist for the sake of the world.” I love it! Spot on. Somehow blending our “target audience” to include God with us, the body of Christ in which we are united, and the Christ of the Emmaus way- these are how worship looks beyond our congregations. A friend of mine says it this way: the church is not the end user of the gospel. I agree, and neither are we the end users of worship.

6. @ tony: to paraphrase you said, “our worship and everything else would be better if it were subservient to the Word.” I have found folks use this to marginalize order/art/testimony to only “illustration of the preacher’s sermon or the platonic idea presented by the Bible.” I would suggest that the Word is hidden and being revealed, and that the risk of missing is unavoidable… The Word is hidden in our past (such as Jesus’ exposition of the collective memory of the Emmaus road disciples) AND the word is also being revealed ahead of us (such as the angel instructing shepherds to go and see these things, and the voice telling peter to get up and go meet…). As such worship is discovery and not “explanation” or “illustration.” We meet God as we sing and pray. Our bodies are put into play as we kneel and raise hands and kiss one another and wash feet and ‘pray double’ through song. And as such, worship that serves the Word is less of a coersive predetermined posture and more of an open receptive posture. I might be splitting hairs here, but my purpose is to suggest that we cannot avoid the risks of stylizing or crafting or “ordering” our acts of worship by being more “Word” centered. Instead worship is to enter into that risk. Perhaps we can, however, make space for the hidden Word to be revealed in our sacramental habits. And, then, to make space for faithful-yet-risky responses of conversion.

First Place - Submission #14 by Jena Ashton (178 votes)
Second Place - Submission #7 by Margot Starbuck (144 votes)
Third Place - Submission #13 by Dannah Walter (42 votes)
Fourth Place - Submission #15 by Ryan Pappan (32 votes)
Fifth Place - Submission #2 by Stephanie Nelson (17 votes)

Each of these winners will get to choose one of the five prize packages. Congratulations to the winners who were picked by the presbymergent community. If you are one of the winners, please email presbymergent here about how to claim your prize package.

We look forward to the challenge it will be to both live in an open-source world, and also honor our denomination’s call to doing things decently and in order - and seeing how that plays out for leadership in the 21st century. We are very excited to see how this new group will guide the continuing emergence of presbymergent.

We have received 15 entries into the Official presbymergent Logo Contest. Please vote for the logo submissions you think are best (you can vote again after 24 hrs). The voting will be open from today until Thursday night at midnight. On Friday, we’ll be awarding the prize packages to the top five submissions with the most votes. The panel of judges will be deliberating this week as well and you’ll hear from us shortly after the top five are chosen.

So, let the voting begin!

UPDATE: Please vote using the voting/polling module on the right hand sidebar of this site. Do not leave your vote in the comments section, please.

We are hoping that your submission for the logo contest would take into consideration our commitment to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and to the Emergent conversation. It is also our hope that this contest will help both presbymergents and friends of presbymergent think creatively about what our logo might look and feel like. The contest officially begins today, and the deadline for logo submissions will be May 2nd. We encourage you all to submit ideas and spread the word about this logo contest through your blogs, email and Facebook. It’s our hope that this will also be a way to continue to get the word out about presbymergent. Here’s how the contest will work.

• People will be able to submit logos up until midnight on May 2nd.
• Logo submissions should be emailed to presbymergent@gmail.com and can be submitted in an appropriate file format (.jpg/.gif/.ai/.png).
• All entries will be posted on the presbymergent website after the deadline, and anyone can come and vote on the presbymergent site for their favorite.
• The top five with the most votes will receive one of the five prize packages below, be considered automatic finalists for the contest and proceed on to the final judging process. Although the winners will be guaranteed finalists, the panel of judges may also consider submissions outside of the contest for the official presbymergent logo. The panel of judges will consist of the Presbymergent Editors, friends of presbymergent and a few professional designers.

Prize Packages

Prize Package 1
The Practicing Congregation by Diana Butler Bass
From Nomads to Pilgrims, ed. by Diana Butler Bass
Tribal Church by Carol Howard Merritt
$30 iTunes Gift Card

Prize Package 2
Flirting with Monasticism by Karen Sloan
Ancient-Future Worship by Robert Webber
$40 Amazon Gift Card

Prize Package 3
Free of Charge by Miroslav Volf
From Stone to Living Word by Debbie Blue
$40 Amazon Gift Card

Prize Package 4
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, ed. by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt
They Like Jesus But Not the Church by Dan Kimball
$40 iTunes Gift Card

Prize Package 5
Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren
The Culturally Savvy Christian by Dick Staub
Your Logo printed on a t-shirt

Again - please pass this on to your friends with gifts in the graphic arts, and help us come up with a logo that symbolizes our hopes for presbymergent. Let the contest begin!

My thanks and respect go out to Carol Howard Merritt, the lone emergent author who, though not completely on board with the idea, at least engaged in the conversation. Emergent Village’s Coordinator, Tony Jones, was asked about his response to the article in an interview, and had this to say:

I’ve read that post, and there are some really good points therein. There are also some naive misconceptions about the publishing industry … In the early days, many of us were committed to publishing everything for free on the Internet. But, at this point, that is just not feasible.

Apparently, however, no one sent that feasibility memo to one of the publishing industry’s oldest and most respected names: Harper Collins. Here’s what the tech-news blog Mashable has to say about it:

HarperCollins will be offering free electronic editions of some its books on its website. In an effort to increase book sales, HarperCollins is adopting a web-based “try before you buy” approach to book promotion, both for online and on the iPhone.

If a profit-driven company can see the wisdom in doing this for good business practice, how much greater would it be for those of us in God’s Kingdom to do it for the sake of spreading the message, the ideas, and the stories that are at the heart of our mission?

And if award-winning author Neil Gaiman can let his fans vote on which of his best-selling novels to put online for free, shouldn’t Tony Jones (or Brian McLaren, or Doug Pagitt) at least be open to considering the idea, rather than dismissing it as naive and infeasible? Surely at least one of Emergent’s three different publishing partners is forward thinking and/or courageous enough to give it a shot?

I had seriously hoped that Emergent, as innovators crying out that “Everything Must Change” could have led the industry on this one and set a bold, generous, example for the secular world. Now my hope is that we can at least not be the last ones to change, as so often happens in the church.

Ah, well. At least Harper-Collins was founded by a Presbyterian. He must’ve had naive misconceptions about the publishing industry…

G-3.0401 Called to Openness: The Church is called

• to a new openness to the presence of God in the Church and in the world, to more fundamental obedience, and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work;
• to a new openness to its own membership, by affirming itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions, and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity;
• to a new openness to the possibilities and perils of its institutional forms in order to ensure the faithfulness and usefulness of these forms to God’s activity in the world;
• to a new openness to God’s continuing reformation of the Church ecumenical, that it might be a more effective instrument of mission in the world.

I think this is an important section of the BOO that I don’t hear all that often. There are a few things in here that I find very promising and hopeful, and I’d like to touch on those briefly.

Openness to the Presence of God

This is an encouragement to continue to be open to the presence of God, wherever God may be. I don’t think we allow God to surprise us enough these days, and while many of us like to think we’re open to experiencing God in new ways, I don’t know that we really are. Of course, this goes both ways. I also need to be open to the presence and Spirit of God being in places that I may not want to go, or with people who I may not agree with.

Inclusive Membership

We indeed need to continue to have an openness when it comes to the membership of the church, and to committing ourselves to being a community of diversity. As we live in an increasingly multicultural world, our churches should also be representative of that, not homogeneous gatherings. I like that language: providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity. As we continue to bring God’s radical love and grace into the world, it should lead us to a place where we are more accepting, more loving, more open to the ways in which God works in all people.

Openness to the Possibilities and Perils of its Institutional Forms

As we continue to move more and more into a post-denominational Christian world, I think we certainly need to keep this in mind. Yes, there are possibilities for the institutional church - there are ways in which it may still serve to be a tool for effective change in the world. However, those possibilities continue to decrease, and more and more, people are becoming aware of the perils of denominational and institutional structures. I don’t know that people in Louisville necessarily are, but clearly people today have issues with institutions. Institutions were once extremely effective in bringing about the kingdom of God in the world; it could be argued they do not have the place in society anymore. What does that mean for the future of the institutional church? Clearly, there is some future. There are still millions of members, millions of dollars. But I’m just not sure how much stock future generations will put in these institutions.

New Openness to God’s Continuing Reformation of the Church

As someone who is invested in this presbymergent conversation, this is clearly something we presbymergents care deeply about. It is our hope, as loyal radicals, to be those who stay on the inside to work to bring about creative, emergent expressions of our historic faith. The Presbyterian sense of the church reformed and always reforming comes into play here. Again, as I’ve mentioned before, we have done a great job of being Reformed, but have not allowed much creative room for the continual reforming that needs to take place. Yet here is our cherished and hallowed Book of Order, calling Presbyterians to be open to God’s continuing reformation of the church - God’s continuing challenge to the status quo of Presbyteries and to the ways things have always been done.

I can foresee myself reading this section at some Presbytery meeting in the future, trying to sway the “old guard” to be open to the movements of the Spirit in our midst. It’s unfortunate that us younger Presbyterians will have to fight for these types of changes, when they’re right there, in black and white print, in our Book of Order.

Cross posted at pomomusings

If the industrial era was acquainted with consumerism, and the modern era flirted with her, then surely post-modernism slept with her and made LOTS of babies (mostly plastic ones in a post-modern assortment of sizes, shapes, and bright neon colors).

Enter the Emerging Church, which (to its credit) takes post-modern tendencies like deconstructionism, subjectivity, and diversity right in stride without skipping a beat. But what does this conversation have to say about consumerism? Better yet, what actions back up the voices in the conversation?

I do hear lots of voices. Mostly in the form of a never-ending stream of books from emerging authors. Don’t get me wrong — I love these authors, and I consume every word on every page of just about every book I read from them, and they have been more than helpful. In fact, there probably wouldn’t be anything emerging if not for the books. But therein lies the problem: I consume what often seems like the flagship product of the Emerging Church — books.

That in itself isn’t entirely bad. Books are great. I’m an English major; I love books. The Bible is a book. But books are decidedly tangible, material, products that both cost money and generate money, not just for their authors, but for large publishing companies as well.

There are exceptions. I hugely admire Shane Claiborne, who practices what he preaches at The Simple Way, and gives away all the proceeds from his book Irresistible Revolution to a slew of noble causes and organizations.

I’m also not against authors making a living (especially because I hope to be one, and make one someday) and being compensated for their time and effort. But there seems to be something wrong with the idea that the very best in emerging ideas and resources:

• are available primarily to those with the cash to keep buying them
• are protected by strict copyright laws designed to limit the spread of information
• often generate more revenue for their publishers than for their authors
• are not freely available as shared online resources for all

This is where we could take a lesson from the Open Source community, where software is written by talented programmers, and reflects many of the qualities emergents aspire to: it’s generative, collaborative, open, transparent, free, good, and people are passionate (or “evangelical”) about it. Just ask anyone who uses Firefox, Linux, or OpenOffice.

Or consider the rapidly changing music industry, where artists are experimenting with creative ways to share their music with listeners — the band Radiohead recently released their album In Rainbows directly from their website (bypassing record labels) where listeners can pay whatever amount they feel is appropriate, including nothing. All indications thus far are that sales are strong, fans are happy, critics are happy, and the artists still receive more than they would have through traditional distribution methods.

Even closer to the literary medium is Creative Commons — an organization that allows writers (and artists and composers, etc.) to retain some rights while giving others (like the right to distribute and share) away. Cory Doctorow, a respected and award-winning science fiction writer who released his first novel both in print (through a publisher) and online (via Creative Commons license) has this to say:

However an author earns her living from her words, printed or
encoded, she has as her first and hardest task to find her
audience. There are more competitors for our attention than we
can possibly reconcile, prioritize or make sense of. Getting a
book under the right person’s nose, with the right pitch, is the
hardest and most important task any writer faces.

All forward thinking writers should read the full text of Doctorow’s article, which is deeply insightful and visionary.

I guess it all boils down to this: In the emergent conversation, are we writing the things we’re writing because we want to sell books, or are we writing the things we’re writing because we want to change the world? Do our ideas, our theologies, really belong to us or to they belong to a King and a Kingdom that transcend profit? And if it’s possible to give those ideas away, to reach more people, (while still selling books and supporting the labor of the thinkers and writers), isn’t that worth trying?

I visited the Emergent Village website today, and noticed two interesting things, side by side at the bottom of the page: A Creative Commons license for all of the web content, and a disclosure that Emergent Village is underwritten by a grant from Abingdon Press. My first instinct was to be cynical: Why is the leading voice in the conversation financed by the corporation that stands most to profit from it? But my second (and better) instinct was this: Perhaps both paradigms (traditional publishing and P2P information sharing) can co-exist, and even help each other. And if it works with a website, couldn’t it work with all these books?

So here’s my challenge to any and all Emergent Authors, both aspiring and accomplished, from an avid reader, supporter, and customer:

1. In addition to selling your books through traditional publishers, consider making them available for free online distribution as well, through Creative Commons, or another similar open source license. I doubt your sales (or livelihood) will suffer significantly, but I’m confident that your audience will expand, which will benefit not only you in the long run, but also your audience, the Emergent Conversation, and the Kingdom of God.
2. If that’s too big a leap, consider making some or all of your earlier works available for free distribution online — especially if some of them have gone out of print, or are otherwise difficult to obtain. Again, you might pick up a few new readers who will then go out and buy your latest.
3. In the process of making your words and ideas more available, less exclusive, and less profit-driven, you’ll undermine the consumeristic tendencies of our post-modern culture, live up to the words and ideals of the Emerging Conversation, and set an example of generosity and sharing that are entirely fitting companions to the gospel we proclaim.

I promise I’ll still buy your books. And attend your conferences. And tell my friends about you. And maybe, just maybe, in the midst of this hijacked consumer holiday we call Christmas, the gift of your words to a hungry and hurting world might remind us all of another gift from long ago — a gift given freely to all people, from the Author of the universe, on a star-filled night in Bethlehem.