What I'll be reading on my summer vacation...

Inspired by a visit this past week with my brother-in-law, a very progressive Evangelical Free pastor from Atlanta, and a recent invitation to help conduct research as part of my Methodist church's re-visioning process, I ordered a few books from Amazon.com that arrived today and thought I'd share the titles in case any of y'all have read them and have opinions:

"The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church," by Reggie McNeal.

"The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church," by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.

"Rethinking Christ and Culture: A Post-Christendom Perspective," by Craig A. Carter.

"Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine," by Wayne Grudem.

"Halley's Bible Handbook With the New International Version," by Henry H. Halley.

Actually, this is a good two summers' worth of reading, I'm sure!

Peace,

Stephen

Church as a safe place

I’m half-way through “Emergent Manifesto” and hope to comment more thoroughly, and thoughtfully, after I’ve finished and processed it all. But one common theme that occurs in several of the essays is the need for church to be a safe place where people can “come clean” with their doubts, their questions, their dreams for Christianity and their struggles and still be accepted. One chapter by an addiction counselor says he finds that prisoners and AA meeting attendees tend to be best at these kind of raw, honest and often very fruitful exchanges, and suggests that in most churches people speak very cautiously – if at all – about the serious challenges posed by actively living out one’s faith for fear of being marginalized or outright rejected.

I have found this to be true in my own experience in Catholic, Presbyterian and now Methodist churches. Outside of the formal worship service (which is itself highly formalized and scripted), serious, vivid talk of God is rare in church. I don’t know if, because this is Iowa, modesty is at play, or whether church-goers tend to be shy or embarrassed about trying to discuss the ineffable. But as this book suggests, I’ve yet to really feel either safe or encouraged to go deep, and I've found that truly disappointing.

I think the real challenge facing traditional churches isn’t that they ask too much of their members, but that they ask – and expect – so very little.

Our First Gathering

We had a great first meeting last night. Albeit, there were only three of us, it was quality conversation. We got to talking about epistomological crisis and how to navigate one. I mentioned this qoute by Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian and editor of a book entitled Narrative Theology.

"The solution to a genuine epistemological crisis requires the invention or discovery of new concepts and the framing of some new type or types of theory which meet three highly exacting requirements.  First, this in some ways radically new and conceptually enriched scheme, if it is to put an end to epistemological crisis, must furnish a solution to the problems which had previously proved intractable in a systematic and coherent way,  Second, it must also provide an explanation of just what it was which rendered the tradition, before it had acquired these new resources, sterile or incoherent or both.  And third, these first two tasks must be carried out in a way which exhibits some fundamental continuity of the new conceptual and theoretical structures with the shared beliefs in terms of which the tradition of enquiry had been defined up to this point." pg. 11

We discussed the future of the eastern Iowa emergent cohort, we commiserated with our ideas we are afraid to mention in other circles, we had good coffee, Jesus was there. Please join us next time. We are looking forward to what this can become. We are taking it slow and focusing on the conversation. That reminded of Brian McLaren's emergent evangelism idea to count conversations instead of conversions. We decided to trust God with the outcomes.

Lessons from the Main Line & Beyond

Hi friends

I just listened to a great podcast of a lecture given by Diana Butler Bass. She is a church history PhD who, in this talk, is addressing a group of main line emergent folk. Though you may not be a "main liner", I think you'll find it helpful, especially if you lead in any context where you have persons of varying worldviews - ie. post-modern, modern or pre-modern - trying to coexist.

Click here to listen to DBB's lecture.

a new kind of christian

Hey friends. I just finished reading McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian". Once again, I find myself soothed by the fact that someone else out there is thinking and processing things that I'm dealing with. If you haven't read it, do so. (thanks Monte for pointing me to the book!)

There is a lot to process, but I'll just start by saying that being a leader on the front edge of this shift is exhausting and sometimes crazy-making. I want to and need to be true to what God is doing in my heart and mind, yet I'm scared to lay it out there for the people I lead. Part of me fears getting the boot, part of me is just uncertain because it is still so much in process, part of me is still scared because I'm still undoing my deep constructs of faith & theology...how can I sound articulate and clear when I'm in a bit of a fog?

The one thing that strikes me hardest as I write this is a need for courage to lead. What are the chances that those we lead are also processing these questions and fearing they are losing their faith or finding Truth, but see that their new found Truth won't be able to survive in their old context of church life. Don't people like that need us to bravely articulate the struggle, the fear, the hope, and the vision for living lives deeply devoted to Jesus and full of love and redemption for the injustice of this world? I think so...