Emergent church - the conference

Go have a look at the Emergent Village weblog for some really interesting commentary on where this 'new reformation' has got to - but to whet your appetites these are a few bits emerging!!

Brian McLaren: 'What you focus on determines what you miss * Our traditional understanding of Jesus may not have been wrong, but partial'

Richard Rohr: 'We must turn from a belief system to an inner experience. Know them, don’t believe them * Recognize that I am living inside a mind bigger than my own. Someone is loving through me, and all I am is the conduit. * Francis didn’t run off and join the Franciscans – He just did it.'

Shane Claiborne: 'Stop explaining/complaining about the church we have experienced and work at becoming the church we dream of. We need to be relevant to the big questions of the day while retaining our cultural peculiarity. Fascinate the world with grace!'

If Churches Were Parks

Sometimes its best not to write but simply let someone else say what's on your mind - and I simply couldn't say it better than this!


If we tore down our church buildings and replaced them with parks would the buildings be missed? If churches were parks, there would be trees and grass and places for pleasant walks, neighbourhood families enjoying the changing seasons, and our “old ones” sitting on benches telling children stories of their lives and faith.

In the fall, as the leaves changed from green to yellow, orange and red, we could invite our friends and neighbours to corn roasts and BBQs; invite them to laugh with us, talk with us, and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation--in the park. We could leave the children something wonderful in a world gone mad.

In the winter we could roll in the snow with the neighbourhood children, throw snowballs, create snow sculptures, and grow to know each other again as we walked under trees heavy with hoar frost. At Christmas, we could string coloured lights, decorate a Christmas tree, savour the story of the nativity and sing carols under quiet stars.

If churches were parks we would have to forsake our games of power and our dreams of empire for pleasant walks, snow forts, corn roasts, Christmas trees, carol sings, Easter pageants, and heart to heart talks with those who need to know why we still believe in God.

If our churches were parks, all people could gather there; they could come whenever they wished, for there would be no locked doors or security windows on our parks--no stained glass windows to hide behind. Members of the church eating lunch in the park could strike up a conversation with a business person, university student, or shopper resting before heading home . . . admire the multi-colours of a group of teenagers and ask them if they are afraid of the world we have created for them; or angry because of the future we may have taken away from them.

Of course, we would find pain in our parks; lonely people, unhappy children, sullen youth. We might confront those trying to buy drugs in our parks. We might fear those who would hurt us and steal from us. If our churches were parks we would have to confront the world outside our buildings. We would have to be those who make peace and speak of redemption and hope rather than those who hide behind fortress walls and wish the world away.

When God started the world, He put His man and woman in a park. He chose to walk and talk with His creation in a park. When we were cast out of the park, we began to build towers, empires, cities and temples. We had to acquire and possess--not only the present, but the past and the future. We found ways to control our world and other persons. It’s hard to do this in a park.


Linda Cannell is Dean of Academic Life at North Park Theological
Seminary, Chicago, IL. She also directs CanDoSpirit Network

www.candospirit.org

For the times they are a changin'

You've heard the ironic saying, 'There's nothing permanent but change' well suprisingly the times they are a chaning - it's no use hankering after that comfy old chair - we need to take courage, climb out of our boxes and reaquaint ourselves with the sheer brilliance of Gods love.

Sometimes, its not until we remove ourselves from the familiar patterns of our lives that we can see how restricted we have been - how hemmed in!

I think Jared's painting calls us not so much to 'out of the box' thinking but out of the box 'climbing' and then seeing

Edward de Bono demonstrated 'out of the box thinking' through the 9 Dots. The task is put this way - join the dots with four straight lines withiout taking your pencil / pen off the page.

The vast majority of people see something in the diagram that is simply not there - a perceived boundary or box that encloses the task within the immediate square discribed by eight of the nine dots

The solution however requires a person to literally 'think outside the box' - by extending three of the four lines as below, you can complete the task quite simply!

Are we so 'churched' that we genuinly find it hard to 'see' or even 'survive' outside of the four walls?

Why is it when we think about evagelism, it's so often about persuading people that the 'box' is such a fab place to be - do we really want to perpetuate a process the result of which is another generation of Christians who look at the church and wonder 'how did it come to this?'

Why do we insist that we need to spend so much time in the great sub-culture we've created, rather than connecting fully with our communities made of people who God loves and to whom he wants his church to minister.

Do we look at ourselves sometimes and whilst we know the truthes in our head are not often experiencing the freedom?

In the workplace you often hear people saying 'once you've been trained - use it or lose it - I wonder if the longer we leave 'it' from when we first believed, the less confidence we have that God's spirit will actually use us in any significant way.

But what is 'it' I hear you ask and by suggesting we might not be doing 'it' or even feel confident enough to do 'it' even if we got around to 'it' I feel slightly afronted!

Well I think 'it' is why the times they are a changin' and I hope you will help me to decide what 'it' really ought to be and how we start doing more of 'it' together, out there where we spend the vast majority of our time with the even more vast majority of people

Gareth

Ps. I know this much 'It's' certainly not rocket science!!