We wanted to create an open source possibility for designers to invent and stimulate our collective imaginations about how to communicate the presbymergent story in a logo. We had a good response and some great pieces were submitted. The difficulty is in determining in an ‘open-sourced way’ what our story is and how we want it told. Moreover we did not make clear the legal relationships that presbymergent or the designers expected. So, we first, want to thank all the contributers and secondly, we have awarded those designers selected by the voting process.

But we have also decided to go a new direction by engaging one designer (pro bono) to develop and refine an original image, departing from the ones submitted by the contestants (you may see similarities to the PC(USA) logo and to images of growth inspire by Emergent Village’s logo, but we feel like this process may be more fruitful). As with any of the presbymergent experiments, if you want to be in the process–included in the we - then contact Adam and you can join the team stewarding this project.

This is a great reminder that this whole presbymergent thing is an act in risk and experimentation. The folks offering to help with the logo entries have been a great help in this experiment, and you who commented on the blog have been as well. If you think of another generative experiment, bring it on. There’s plenty of work to be done.

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!

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.

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?
——-
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.

As I was throwing out names of books and blogs, I forgot to mention a free resource that you can get directly from the Presbyterian Marketplace called “Living the Vision: Becoming a Multicultural Church”. It is actually a pretty good resource and you can’t beat the price!

It went quite well, and I heard a lot of positive feedback.  Many folks already had some familiarity with the emergent church.  There’s even been some bubbling up of folks saying maybe we ought to think about doing something here in this un-emergent East Iowa Presbytery!

The most challenging aspect was trying to find a way to explain ‘post-modernity’ to those who don’t already live it or who don’t have the theological/philosphical language to quite grasp it.

Adam has posted a copy of my powerpoint presentation on the resource page.  Special thanks to all those folks who contributed their ideas here as well as those who sent me copies of powerpoint presentations and outlines they had used in the past.