The Great Emergence

I am going to The Great Emergence conference. I think this is going to be one of the most important conferences around one of the most important books this year.  The conference centers around Phyllis Tickle’s new book of the same name but also includes many important breakouts.  If you want to get a taste for why Tickle’s book is so important go here and watch the video.

I will be getting in to Memphis on December 4th around 2:00 PM.  If anyone wants to see Graceland, hang out for dinner, or see downtown Memphis that day, let me know.  Would love to hang out. I will have a car if anyone needs a ride.

The event is billed as:

“The Great Emergence National Event is a unique and freshly designed event built on innovative adult learning techniques including interaction, participation, and inspiring content on the current state of and future possibilities for Christianity.”

Speakers include:

Tony Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village and author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

Doug Pagitt, founder and pastor of Solomon’s Porch (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and author of A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-Filled, Open-Armed, Alive-and-Well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in Us All

Peter Rollins, founder of ikon (Belfast, Ireland) and author of The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief

J. Brent Bill, executive vice president of the Indianapolis Center for Congregations and the author of Sacred Compass: The Art of Spiritual Discernment

Lisa & Will Samson, members of Communality (Lexington, Kentucky) and co-authors of Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live

Joseph Myers, author of Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect

Tim Keel, founder and pastor of Jacob’s Well (Kansas City, Missouri) and author of Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, co-founder of Rutba House (Durham, North Carolina) and author of New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church

Karen Ward, is Abbess of Church of the Apostles, Seattle, an intentional, sacramental community in the way of Jesus Christ.

Sybil MacBeth, is a mathematics instructor, a dancer, and a doodler. Her 2007 book Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God introduces a prayer practice that is meditative, visual, active and playful. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband, Andy, who is an Episcopal priest.

Nanette Sawyer is founding pastor or Wicker Park Grace and author of Hospitality—The Sacred Art: Discovering the Hidden Spiritual Power of Invitation and Welcome.

Cost is $145 before November 5th.  You can register here.

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You Need To Watch This

If you are a pastor, or someone who is in ministry, you need to watch this right now. I’ll let you discover what I’m talking about.

FYI: You need to click the arrow to reveal the video.

Postscript: Unfortunately if you didn’t get to watch this it was taken down. Sorry. I’ll look for it elsewhere.

Final postscript: Okay I got a copy of it.  It’s too big to post or send, so I’m breaking it down to smaller files.  If you want to be notified when its done, let me know in the comments.

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Straight From The Horses Mouth

The hits just keep coming people.

“This, says Kimball, is precisely the problem. In an increasingly post-Christian culture fewer people have contact with real Christians. We’ve hidden ourselves in a Christian sub-culture bubble. As a result only “the loudest voices are defining who we are,” he says. These loud and usually angry Christians are the only ones heard and seen by the culture. This is what people have based their opinions of Christians upon.”

Dan Kimball, at the Shift conference. (More at Out of Ur)

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The Red Bull Gospel

This is Kara Powell. You probably don’t know Kara but you should. She’s Executive Director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Kara gets it.

She’s presenting at Shift, Willow’s Youth Ministry Conference. She has what I think is a killer observation.

“She says that a lot of what students are fed is a guilt based gospel—what Dallas Willard calls the “gospel of sin management.” Powell compared it to a diet of Red Bull. It’s fast, energetic, and easy, but not very nourishing. And after the rush is over you deflate. We’ve fed students a gospel of rights and wrongs, but nothing nourishing that they can internalize and grow from. No wonder they fall away shortly after graduation. The buzz is over.” (More at Out of Ur)

Love it.  Listen up people.

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Straight From The Horses Mouth

“We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.”

Greg Hawkins, Executive Pastor of Willow Creek as quoted at the Shift Conference

The article mentions, “But the research shows that it’s the mature believers that drive everything in the church—including evangelism.”  It’s hard for me to fathom that it took a study to reveal this.

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The Really Hard Section

I really regret the fact that I didn’t get to go to Q this year when I see pictures like the one here. It was a cost issue. But now I know I really wanted to be there. I would have also like to see The Fray, but I digress.

The picture above is the full story of the Gospel. It’s the one that has gotten lost over the years. And what caught my attention is the last part. Restoration.

This part is not possible over an extended period of time without love. The middle two, which the church has been focusing on for ages, requires a grasp of theology and can be reduced to a prayer (so they think). But the last part simply cannot be done without love. It’s impossible. Because restoration requires getting through the $*it. It requires forgiveness. It requires the willingness to stand with someone who just refuses to let go of their stuff. And that my friends is the messy stuff.

Addendum: After I wrote this I realized that if God knows what is going on, being outside of time, the first section is also not possible without love.  Creation.  If God knows humanity will fall, then creation requires love and the willingness to step through each section to see it through.  Creation was an act of love that revealed God willingness to step through each stage with us.

And please don’t assume I’m saying that redemption doesn’t require love.  It does.

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Interesting Stuff 12

This is the trippiest site I have ever seen.

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This is a really great spoken word poem by Ragamuffin Soul.

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Kamp Krusty with a great story about the origins of a little known organization called Kiva.

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Epiphaneia announced that they will be announcing their 2009 conference stuff on March 21, 2008. Should be interesting.

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Michael Cline provides a provocative assessment of the drug of choice for younger evangelicals.

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I want to go to this conference.

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New Conspirators – Saturday

This morning we were greeted with an urban taste of rap for worship. Ohmega Watts shared his hip-hop gospel songs for us. Personally I loved it. I grew up on KSOL and Marvin Gaye. Buy this guys music. It’s good. A few of us stood in the back dancing and enjoying the sounds. But I’m sure there were a few who weren’t quite used to rap as an expression for worship. On top of that, Ohmega has two friends break dancing behind him. It was pure Tom, swinging for the fences. If you can, check out Ohmega’s music on iTunes. His lyrics were exceptional.

Ohmega gave way to Efrem Smith, co-author of The Hip Hop Church. To be honest, Efrem was speaking my language. He spoke for at least an hour on what it means to be loved first so we can love. And much of what we do is look for our identity in everything but God. And what we get is a reflection of the broken self. I really loved his breakdown of agape and God’s expressive love flowing through us.

He presented a rousing call to tear down the traditional oppressive structures that is “white” church. I’m sure he pushed a few buttons but his call to essentially “get real” is needed if we’re going to find God’s purest reflection in humanity, one based on many races and colors.

I appreciated his message so much I attend his break out session immediately following. It was a more detailed breakdown on the history of what we know as church in American culture, which has stripped away any culture references such as German, Irish, or Swedish. For a lot of people who come from predominantly white communities, this was a wake up call. The questions that followed revealed the tension around this issue. Some were really struggling with it.

The hard part of this issue is sitting with the tension and listening to the black community share what it feels and not feel like I’m the oppressor. I’m a white guy. But Efrem was very clear to say that he wasn’t bashing people. He was interested in moving past the white or black church to a multicultural church. He also shared a frustration that much of the publishing industry won’t give voice to the black community. I hope this changes in the future.

I sat in the balcony during the morning service and as I was walking out, I ran into Mark Scandrette. What a great guy. We shared lunch together and talked about what it means to love in community and really practice following Jesus. We shared stories about ministry and what it means to really practice love. He’s contemplating writing a new book called The Jesus Dojo. Right there I knew I had to go to his session.

I ended up meeting a new guy named Dan. I wish I had gotten your last name. If you visit, drop me a line. We talked for at least twenty minutes about what it means to start a church from a discipleship perspective. I could have talked for hours with this guy. He just came out from New Orleans and was looking to plant a church. We talked about what it would mean to flip the church and have the Sunday service support the discipleship communities. Much love Dan in your mission in Seattle.

We both walked to Mark’s session and he shared what it means to live in a new monastic community. Much of what he spoke of is on his site, especially his seven vows. The crowd really responded to his message. He’s a creative visionary and I hope that he writes his book soon. If anyone knows of an agent willing to talk with him, he’s beginning to look. Mark shared one thing that caught my attention in a deeper way. He said, if where you are living is not resonating, maybe it’s time to move to a location that will.

Mark Van Steenwyk, Roy Soto, and Eileen Hanson shared their thoughts on mission in different communities. I missed part of this because I was late. Sorry Mark.

The last session was Mark Scandrette’s wife Lisa, Mike Morris, and Andrew McLeod. They each shared some really interesting perspectives on co-ops, family life in communal living, and Mike shared his wit as a Friar. Again, but I understand why, was too short.

Tom and Christine had us finished with an exercise that surprised me. We each had to imagine a way we could bring renewal into our lives. I closed my eyes and could instantly see Jesus walking up to me and he sat down next to me. I fully expected him to tell me what he wanted me to do. But then he just sat there…for two minutes. And then Tom said, “Okay times up.” I opened my eyes and wondered what that was about and then I realized what Jesus was trying to tell me. It was time to just sit with him. Andrew McLeod sat next to me and he had virtually the same thing. Stop and sit with Jesus…just be.

Well, that’s about it. If you missed it there’s always next year. The plans are already in the works. Much love to Tom, Christine, Eliacin, Kathy, Mark S., Mark V., Tomas, Cole, Dan, Lisa, Dwight, Shane, and so many more wonderful people I got to meet. It was really the people who were the face of God to me all weekend. May God bless you.

I uploaded some more pictures from the sessions here.

Ohmega Watts talking with Christine Sine.

Efrem Smith sharing how important it is to let God love us first so we can love.

Mark V., Eileen Hanson, and Roy Soto

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New Conspirators – Friday Night

Today and tonight were awesome. So many people were talking about how great it was to be at the conference and feel like we are taking part in a really great conversation. There were so many stories and people who simply wanted to find a way to bring love and renewal to our communities. I also felt like the evening session was the reason I was supposed to come.

After lunch I sat in on Dwight Friesen’s session. It was a really great dialog (and I mean dialog) on finding common ground and conversation with those who are part of the traditional church. So much of what we do is deal with the tension of deconstruction, but Dwight was passionate about finding ways to be agents of renewal, especially those who came before us. He brought a great point about Derrida, who wanted to ultimately find beauty and grace in deconstruction, and ultimate find something constructive. He expressed what I thought was a brilliant point – We are called to honor our fathers. Dwight doesn’t lead from a deposit model of communication. For the first 65 of his 70 minute session all he did was ask questions and create dialog. He commented a lot on what was said but it was really driven by what we wanted to talk about and were feeling. He challenged all of us to be creative constructionists by learning to dance in the rhythm of grace.

My ankle was killing me so I didn’t get a chance to go on the afternoon walks. I’m bummed because the stories that were told were absolutely incredible. I’m not kidding. The one that stood out to me, and I’m gonna try and track this guy down to get the exact words, was a small group that walked into a store. Inside was a guy that apparently looked just like the American version of Jesus, hair and all. They struck up a conversation and the guy said, “they looked just like Christians.” But then he said, (and know I’m paraphrasing) “Now I know I have to watch out for my rights.” Everyone in the audience was stunned. The guy apparently was not a Christian and said that we have to find a way to move past the oppressive way show up in culture. (I’m not doing it justice). It kind of felt like this small group was wondering if this really was Jesus and if he was a prophet.

In the evening session, Shane Claiborne from The Simple Way told stories about being love in an intentional community way. It’s hard not to love Shane because he’s very humble and just wants to love. He talked a little bit about his new book, Jesus for President. I got to ask him about losing his community in the fire and how he found love in the midst of that. His response was really cool. He said, “This year I found out what it was like to be just like the people I’ve been serving. I was homeless and they supported me.”

And the moment that I would have paid a thousand dollars to show up for was during the question and answer session. About half way through a guy stood up and said, “I’m a Palestinian Muslim. But I like what you are doing so I wanted to come and listen.” This is why Shane is so powerful. He’s not getting stuck in orthodoxy and all the squabbles that come with that game. He’s just practicing love. Well done Shane.

I uploaded some more pictures from the sessions here.

Shane Claiborne during his talk.

Jonathan Neufeld leading the stories from the afternoon walk.

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New Conspirators – Friday Morning

This morning began with an amazingly simple worship session. Sean Hall, and I believe his wife, led an acoustic set that was so real I think it caught me off guard. In fact the first gentleman to speak pointed that out. Sean’s first song focused on Justice that was so beautiful. Kathy Escobar then led a reading that used graphics that were really cool.

The first session was way too short. Tomas Yaccino (Mosaic), Kathy Escobar (Emerging), Tim Morey (Missional), and Mark Scandrette (Monastic) shared a few minutes each on the four streams. It was somewhat of a summary from a practitioner’s perspective of each stream. The unfortunate part was that this session could have been two hours and still probably would have been too short. This was the heart of the conference. Tom opened up the session about half way through and allowed a couple of questions, of which I got to ask one.

One of the central themes that seemed to be consistent was the awakening of the priesthood of all believers. Several of the speakers mentioned calling their community into this, especially Tim and Tomas. My question was, “What has been the the response of people who are invited into the priesthood of all believers and given permission to love?” Tomas answered, and I loved his response. He said (essentially) “people were embracing what it meant to love.”

In the morning session I attended Tom Sine’s breakout “Making It Real.” His presentation was more conversational and extended much into the nature of a global consumer model and it’s attempt and success at influencing us. One of the things everyone seemed to be struggling with was how to make our faith real.

The final session of the morning was a very short panel discussion with Tali Hairston, Dwight Friesen, and Lisa Domke. I really would liked to have heard more from everyone on this panel, especially Tali about the multicultural church. The panel was opened up to questions and no one would ask anything. So I jumped in again and asked Dwight, “What is the seminary doing to integrate orthopraxy and the practice of love?” His response was that the intent of every class was to prepare someone to love. I really like where Mars Hill Graduate School is going if this is so.

On my way back to my car, I turned my ankle really, really bad. It’s kind of a bummer because I won’t be able to make the neighborhood walks this afternoon.

I uploaded some more pictures from this mornings sessions here.

Sean Hall leading worship.

Kathy Escobar leading a reading during worship.

The morning panel with Mark Scandrette, Tim Morey, Tomas Yaccino, and Kathy Escobar.

The second morning session with Lisa Domke, Dwight Friesen, and Tali Hairston.

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New Conspirators – Thursday Night

Tonight a full house arrived in a brand new church to celebrate four streams of renewal showing up in the church. The four streams are mosaic, monastic, emerging and missional. Each is a different expression bubbling up organically and without any real help from the organized church. Each has more of a grassroots feel to it.

There was definitely an interesting feel this evening. To a certain extent the crowd was rather quiet in the beginning. Tom asked some questions which everyone felt reluctant to answer. He had an art board on the side of the room and at first only Mark Scandrette drew something on it. Tom Sine then opened with a clip from Strictly Ballroom. And if you haven’t seen the movie, it is the closest thing to Christendom (in a comical way) I have ever seen. “No new moves.” It really helped break the ice every seemed to be feeling. It almost felt like we were kids in a candy store who had been told we could eat what we want, only no one wanted to make the first move.  Once someone did, everyone got involved.

Tom provided a brief overview, which I recorded but haven’t gone over yet. (I’m sure there will be many who post their notes.) Tom’s intro was to an extent an overview of the conference and his thoughts on the streams. We also opened up to questions from the audience and there were many thought provoking questions from people looking to connect, explore, and just understand what was going on.  We also got to hear what each speaker was going to share over the two days.

I really like the vibe of this conference. It’s much more “unconference” than most. Tom and Christine are engaging, personable, and deeply caring and are not afraid to make fun of themselves. They are simply enjoying helping people explore how God is showing up in new ways.  They are hoping for and I think will get a lot of interaction and communication.  If you aren’t here, you are missing it.

Afterwards, It got to connect with Mark VanSteenwyk, from Jesus Manifesto. What a great guy. We shared our many thoughts on monasticism, of which we have both explore, him more than me.

The crowd dispersed for sort of an after party. It seemed like everyone showed up afterwards. One half the room was packed.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos here. And a few below.

We were in a brand new building that was two weeks old. It was really a great location.

Tom and Christine Sine led most of Thursday night.

Mark Scandrette started the art board.

Near the end, each speaker was able to share what they were there to communicate.  What a great group of people.

The after social.  The room was almost full.

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Interesting Stuff 10

Rick Ianniello comes up with an absolutely hilarious parody of the feelings we feel about the democratic process. A must watch.

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Jason Clark is having some very interesting guest posts on the subject of universalism and the Christian faith.

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If you weren’t able to make the Sustainable Faith conference, the audio sessions are now available on iTunes. You can find the links here.

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I love Kamp Krusty. And he takes a brilliant stand on the issue of hell. If you haven’t read it, you should.

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Here’s a guy who has provided us with “An Exceptional Simple Theory Of Everything.” Where was this guy in my high school trigonometry class. (ht: KB)

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The New Conspirators Conference

I’m going to the New Conspirators conference in Seattle this week.  The conference is focusing on the four streams that are emerging: monastic, mosaic, missional and emerging.  I really like the breadth of this conference.  If you are going, let me know and we’ll hook up at some point so I can see your smiling faces.

I’ll be blogging about it as much as I can. Look here Feb 28 – Mar 1 for posts and updates. Some great people are going to be there including the list below.
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Come imagine new ways to give expression to God’s kingdom in a changing world:

• Experience the creativity of Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution and co-author of Jesus for President, and his companions at The Simple Way as they help their Philadelphia community rebuild after a destructive fire

• Join Karen Ward and her friends as they celebrate their faith at the Church of the Apostles in Seattle and the Fremont Abbey Arts Center

• Learn how Sanctuary Covenant Church, a multicultural congregation led by Efrem Smith, co-author of The Hip Hop Church, is making a difference in Minneapolis

• Join Mark Scandrette, author of Soul Graffiti, in re-imagining what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in San Francisco

• Discover with Julie Clawson how God is raising up emerging women to re-invent the church (I know

• Celebrate with Tomas Yaccino what God is doing through a new generation of missional leaders in Latin America

• Learn how to create more missional churches with Tim Morey from Life Covenant in Torrance, CA

• Imagine with Mark Pierson, co-author of The Prodigal Project, how to create ancient/future forms of celebrations and worship for both traditional churches and new expressions

• Imagine new forms of social entrepreneurship with Devin Erhardt of Pura Vida Coffee

• Meet those who are fashioning emerging expressions of church with Dwight Friesen of Mars Hill Graduate School

• Travel with Romanita Hairston, from World Vision, to visit urban churches that are finding a way to make a difference in tough places

• Join Mark Van Steenwyk in creating a monastic community of Jesus Radicals in Minneapolis

• Learn with pastor Eugene Cho about the flourishing of Quest here in Seattle

• Discover with Andrew McLeod how to create economic coops in uncertain times

• Explore with Lisa Domke how to make choices as we race into the 2008 US presidential election

• Learn with Eileen Hansen how to grow new mustard expressions in a traditional Church

• Learn how to find resources to fund creative new ventures with Tom Balke

• Imagine how to be friars in the 21^st century with Mike Morris from Britain

• Create spiritual practices for those in emerging and traditional churches with Bruce Bishop

• Imagine with Melanie and Jonathan Neufeld innovative ways churches can provide leadership in urban transformation

• Join Ricci Kilmer and Eliacin Rosario-Cruz in beginning the revolution at home

• Discover with Christine Sine, author of Godspace and co-author of Living On Purpose, how to create a liturgy of life

• Imagine with Tom Sine, author of The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, how to create missional whole-life faith and whole-life communities for uncertain times

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The Desire For Emerging Elders

I was watching this very cool video (ht) of Michael Frost from the 2007 Presbyterian Global Fellowship Conference in Houston, TX. Michael, if you didn’t know is the co-author of Shaping of Things To Come. At around 20:00 of the video he begins this very interesting section on elders. And I began to realize that much of the problem within the emerging/missional church is that we don’t have seasoned elders who have been engaged in these conversations like Michael is presenting here. It’s new. It’s fresh. But that new, fresh territory means that we don’t have elders. And that means some of us will get it wrong.

And I recognize that it is sometimes hard to embrace something that has no foundation, no traditions or elders that have done the hard work of sifting through all that we are contemplating. The liminal shift we are in is in some ways a return to the original design that Jesus modeled so long ago. And yet in my life time these are new dialogs, new practices, new explorations in what it means to follow Jesus. And as Michael mentions in the video, it would be nice to have those who have explored this territory before.

But hey, I’m also recognizing that I am enjoying this path we are on. I like exploration and enjoy the freedom that my Heavenly Father gives me to figure it out. Much love to all you brothers and sisters who are with me on this journey, and a wave to all those back at the village. We’ll send reports.

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Q Conference – April 9-11, 2008

This last year I had the amazing pleasure of attending the Q Conference. It’s hosted by The Fermiproject, the same people who put on Catalyst. Q stands for Questions. It’s about convening to ask better questions in four areas: Culture, Church, Future and Gospel. Last year included Donald Miller, Rick McKinley, Rob Bell, Chris Seay, and my favorite, Catherine Rohr from Prison Entrepreneurship Program. I think there were over 18 speakers and several musical acts. John Foreman from Switchfoot played an amazing acoustic set and a song he literally just wrote that week. We also got to see an early premier of Bella.

Q is designed to be much like the TED conference. Each speaker has 18 minutes to speak and by lunch your brain is on overload. By dinner you want to go to sleep and dream of the possibilities but someone invites you to dinner because that’s just how they do it here.

This years roster includes: Tim Keller, Tim Sanders, Diane Louise Jordan, Louie Giglio, Makoto Fujimura, Bill McKibben, Jon Tyson, Andy Crouch, Rick Devos, Chuck Colson, Jamie Tworkowski, Jim Wallis, and so many more. The cool thing about Q is that the lesser known speakers are the reason to come. They have such brilliant ideas and they are putting them into action.

The event this year is in New York City next to the Empire State Building. NYC is costly so I wanted to split the cost of a 2B apartment as opposed to a hotel. I’m looking for someone who would like to room with me and share the experience. I’m getting ready to book an apartment in the city so I need to know soon.

Who’s with me?

If you don’t want to share a room but you are coming to the conference, make sure you let me know. I’d love to meet everyone who shows up here from time to time. Trust me you won’t be disappointed if you can make it.

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A Generous Orthodoxy All Over Again

Emergent Village is looking for feedback on developing a Greenbelt type festival. And as I was taking it they included the following demographic question: “Primary Theological Orientation”. And to a certain extent I looked at the list and identified with almost every one, which made me think about Brian McLaren’s, “A Generous Orthodoxy.”

I’m a former marketing guy so I get why they want to do this. But to be honest I surprised me that Emergent would seek out this information. Facetiously, are they going to stamp this on the name tag?

Spiritual but not religious: Yes, I am a spiritual person but I can’t stand oppressive religion.

Orthodox (Eastern Rite, OCA, Coptic, etc): Yes, I’m trying to be orthodox. Aren’t we all?

Roman Catholic: Yes, even though I have serious concerns.  I love the liturgy and art forms that are part of the history. The Apostle Peter was part of this church too.

Anglican (Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, etc) Yes, These are my brothers from up North. Need to know more though.

Methodist (UMC, AME, Nazarene, Wesleyan, etc) Yes, I love Wesley’s focus on discipleship.

Reformed (PCUSA, PCA, UCC, etc) Yes, I hope I’m reforming.

Lutheran: Yes, see “reformed”.

Anabaptist: Yes, I love the focus on Kingdom.

Pentecostal (Charismatic, etc) Yes, I truly believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well and leading for those who are listening.

Evangelical (Non-Denom, Vineyard, Southern Baptist, etc) Yes, I love the beauty of freedom and intimate worship and losing labels.

Contemplative Tradition (Quaker, etc) Yes, you bet. I need to remember to remember and reflect on the journey on a regular basis.

Metaphysical Christian (Unity, etc) Yes. It’s hard for me to knock anything that has the word unity in it. 😉

Other Religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) Yes with an obvious asterisk. Jesus was Jewish and I have learned a tremendous amount from Hebrew culture, Buddhists and Muslims on commitment and conviction, but the real word here is human.

None: Yes, because it is hard for me to identify that I am simply one of these.

I’m being facetious with all of this to a certain extent.  But the list really got me thinking about the nature of the emerging church and our desire to move past traditional belief labels and find deeper distinctions that bring us together so we can learn from each other. I recognize that we don’t have these distinctions yet. But I’m not afraid to learn from my Buddhist friend or my Anabaptist brother. I can easily imagine God speaking through them just as much as he would through an ass. I made a decision a long time ago to be open to listening to the Spirit in what ever way He chooses. I have Scripture to help me sift.

I suddenly had a renewed appreciation for what Brian was trying to accomplish with his book. How do we begin to learn from each other rather than separate ourselves? How do we learn to connect as human beings rather than disconnect based on differences? Love calls us to move past these differences and see each other for who we really are, God’s beautiful creation. We may believe differently but it doesn’t mean they each of us doesn’t need love.

My end choice was “other” for this reason. It was a good exercise though.

Which one would you pick?

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Interesting Stuff 4

This is a really cool site. What do you look like and what do you eat for breakfast? What does it say about you?

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Mike Foster, formerly of XXXchurch.com is releasing a new book, “Deadly Viper Character Assassins“. Yes, the title comes from the movie Kill Bill. You can check out his really cool site for the book here.  Mike was gracious to let me review his book.  Look for the review here shortly.  I got it today.

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Here is an interesting conference on discipleship called Cynicism and Hope. Lets pray the hope wins out. (thanks Mark)

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Q Conference Afterthoughts – 2

Thursday

I recognize that on Thursday I was somewhat hung over from thinking so much. I was still on California time so getting up at what was 5 AM for me made it harder to be in the moment. But I gave it my best shot. The following are what stood out to me.

David Kinnaman, who is President of the Barna Group shared with the audience the initial findings about how the world sees Christianity. It was honestly sad to hear how we show up to people. They don’t see us as people who are defined by love, but as people who are defined by judgment. That made me sad.

Andy Stanley shared about the value of impacting culture. I’ve never seen Andy before, but I loved his simplicity and style.

Shayne Wheeler, from All Souls Fellowship, and Chris Seay presented a great conversation on homosexuality. And this is when I got sad. Why is it so hard for people to love people who are homosexuals? Yesterday I was reading the verse in John 8 about the adulterous woman, and if Jesus showed up today, I think he’d probably choose someone who is homosexual. What are we afraid of? This conversation dominated the afternoon breakouts, and there was serious arguments that happened in the Q&A session afterwords. I don’t get it. Are we going to change people’s hearts with condemnation or love?

Sadly, at this point I was almost done thinking. The next three presenters spoke on the environment and I was not all there. I was worn down but liked what they said. I firmly believe in the stewardship of the environment, but nothing new hit me.

Jon Passavant from Model Home Project was really cool. He connected his friends in the modeling world to the simple act of love and this caught my attention. I met Jon afterwards and he was very genuine. I appreciated his honesty and love for God.

I ended up taking the trip to CNN, which was interesting but nothing special. I had assumed we would be meeting with people from CNN, but it was just a tour. Had I known this I would probably have taken the tour through the High Museum.

Rob Bell spoke that evening on the Eucharist. I’ve heard this idea from Rob at the Isn’t She Beautiful conference and it was nice to hear him reiterate it. He was in such a sassy mood and I love that about him.

I went to bed and exhausted.

Friday

Today was held in the Fox Theater. I love Gabe’s choices for sites. Both were very artistic and gave the gatherings an art feel to them. Nicely done.

Sadly, I just didn’t get James Emory White or Clint Kemp. Nothing hit me and I found myself wandering. This may have been from my lack of sleep or being worn out. I also felt that the 3 minutes segment, where people shared their ideas was anticlimactic. Nothing hit me.

And then Rick McKinley spoke. I have to say that I love Rick for a lot of reasons. One is that he had helped me to understand what repentance can truly be through various methods and sermons. I love his simplicity and humility. He’s a rock star that doesn’t care that he’s a rock star. He’s rather be hanging with the homeless than sharing the spotlight. His message was simply to give away power, that within congregations are people who want to love and need to be released. He asked some really great “what if…” questions.

I said earlier that I think it was divine providence that he got bumped to Friday and I’ll share why. I met a friend, Dr. David, at the conference and we were lamenting that it was sad that we all got together in this one place and weren’t taking away or participating in some shared initiative together. There was a tremendous amount of influence in that room. Perhaps the ability to influence 100,000 or more and yet we were leaving disconnected. We had idea but there was no initiative. Rick perhaps provided that initiative. He shared how he was working on the Advent Conspiracy. It’s a project to take the vast amount of money we waste on Christmas and solve the world’s clean water problem. I instantly knew that I was on board.

I left Q knowing I’m coming back next year. Gabe said it would likely be in New York, which would give me a great reason to come back to NY. Love that city.

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Initial Q Afterthoughts

I’m sitting at the Atlanta Airport thinking about Fermiproject’s Q conference. This is the first real opportunity I have taken to download my thoughts and take a look at what I’m really leaving here with.

Wednesday

Q was held in an old Tabernacle next to CNN. The location was awesome and really was inspiring for progressive thought. Whenever I looked around I felt like I was in a rock concert slash think tank. Each session was only 18 minutes, which created a rapid fire thought process. If a great idea came around, we didn’t have much time to think about it or we would miss the next presenter’s ideas.

What stood out to me?

For me, this was the best day in terms of new ideas and thoughts, which is like saying chocolate ice cream is better than chocolate chip ice cream. They’re both good. But my clear favorite was Catherine Rohr, with Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP). This is clear one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Catherine’s group restores prisoners by selecting the natural leaders in prisons, restores their dignity, loves them, and then prepares them for business when they get out. They’ve never had someone return to prison and the dropout rate was I believe 3%. To me Catherine was Jesus because she took a risk to love the unlovable. I dig that.

Andy Crouch broke down trends in culture and how we process culture. He helped language that process. It kind of felt like someone who helps you realize what you’ve always known but never had the words to describe it. He broke them down into postures over the last forty years (or so). First we condemned culture. Then we critiqued culture. Then we copied culture, and then we consumed culture. Each posture was simply an attempt to deal with how culture shows up. He then did something I really liked. He gave us a holistic approach to posture as people who love: create and cultivate culture, which is a reflection of our Father. Nice.

Rick McKinley, from Imago Dei, was supposed to be speaking today, but for some reason, which ended up being divine, he got pushed to Friday. More on that in a little bit.

Kevin Kelley spoke on the future. He was the former editor of Wired Magazine. I’ve never heard of Kevin but he helped encapsulate culture in a unique way. But one thing he said that struck me was the population growth will not continue. In fact, we will see it decline dramatically over the next generations. This caught everyone by surprise.

Donald Miller was as humorous and funny as he always is. But I’ve heard most of his presentation of narrative through articles and podcasts so it wasn’t new. It still was a joy to see him. He did have the most humorous moment of the conference that I think helped lighten the spirit of a leader’s conference, which can often get intense. The Q group chose to use a clock, which counted down to zero. At zero it pulsated, almost like it was coming out at you. So imagine for a second, two large zeroes pulsating, and Donald said, “My time is up. The boob’s are flashing.” Everyone laughed. Thank you so much for the humor Don. I love you for that.

Blake Mycoskie, from Tom’s shoes told his story, and if you don’t know about this guy, you should. It’s very simple. If you buy a pair of his shoes, he’ll give one to someone else for free. It’s that simple.

I’ve never heard or seen Chris Seay, but what he said caught everyone in the stomach. His conversation was passionate and somewhat angry, (which may have just been lunch) which made me wonder what other conversation’s he had about this. His point was that as a culture we are consumers, which was validated by data. No one could move or ignore what he was saying. At the end of the session we had a breakout to discuss how we could spend less. And the two guys next to me were stunned. It was clear this was a tough topic to look at. Chris’s point was that if we took a small portion of the money we spend frivolously at Christmas we could solve (yes solve) the world’s clean water problem. Think about that. What if we as a church got together to solve the world water problem? And this is why God pushed Rick McKinley to the end. You’ll see why later.

I got to meet David Batstone, from NotForSale campaign, which I’ve blogged about. He was extremely gracious and passionate about what he was doing. Human trafficking was a thick topic at this conference and I loved learning more about it.

If you’re getting the gist that the people just keep coming, realize that we’ve barely gotten past lunch at this point. It was almost too much to be honest. But I loved it anyway. It forced me to think and rethink, and rethink again.

Jeff Johnson gave a fiery dialog on the hip-hop culture. It was really cool to hear the true origins of hip-hop and how it all started. He did say that hip-hop was representative of the disenfranchised, But I thought Jeff missed an opportunity to connect everyone to a deeper point and that hip-hop is representative of the oppressed, the disenfranchised, people that we all are. Unless I misinterpreted him, which is always possible.

The highlight of the evening, which felt like the crown jewel of the day, was getting a private acoustic concert from Jon Foreman from Switchfoot. We got to hear a song he had never played before and was so beautiful. It felt like a great honor to hear him play.

I honestly went to bed numb. I’ll process Thursday when I get home.

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Q Thoughts

We had coffee and dessert with a bunch of people after the evening session of the Q conference. There were six of us and we talked about what hit each of us. At a typical conference each person will have one thing that really stood out to them. A lot of the times, it is the same thing. What is interesting about this conference is that everyone had something different. It was like a firehose of thought and questions; ideas streaming at you all day long. That is why I came. To engage.

When I get home I will process more of each person.

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