Paul Sparks & Tim Sorens are pulling together some remarkably innovative folks into this process.  Check out their new web site and corresponding Ning site.

If you and/or your church are seeking to grow in what it means to live in reciprocal relationship with you neighborhood, than this conversation is likely for you.  I can hardly wait.

Connected to this, I’m getting ready to guide students @ Mars Hill Graduate School through a course that I’ve been developing in collaboration with the Parish Collective instigators.  The course will be titled: The Body of Christ: Rediscovering the Local Parish as Embodied Witness.

Peace, dwight

The video is made by the team over at North Point Media.  Check it out.

Peace, dwight

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUUlZDSRU-M

On a number of occasions Jim and I have engaged one another around the wisdom of such a web-site… I think it is safe to say that we have differing perspectives on the value of such a site, and its theological and cultural significance.

Apparently the NPR show  “All Tech Considered” found Jim & Tyler’s ChurchRater and decided to do a story about it.  When they asked Jim for a person who might have an “alternative” perspective Jim kindly gave them my name.  So last week I had a short conversation with a producer from “All Tech Considered.”

The story aired yesterday and you can listen to, or read the story the NPR story here.

It feels odd to critique a service created by a friend because that same friend recommended I critique it… that’s just one of the many reasons why I love Jim Henderson.

Peace, dwight

It gives me great hope for the unintuitive purposes of God through the church in the world.

While with Christian Churches Together I was able to facilitate a two hour conversation.  The title of the workshop they asked me to facilitate was “The Emerging Church Movement.”

One of the primary misconception I tried to address head on was the mistaken notion of the “Emerging Church.”  As I see it there is no such thing as “the emerging church.”  Of course there are local faith communities, pastors/priests, and community members who are influenced and shaped by the emerging conversation, but the emerging conversation is not a church.  The conversation does not have a theology, it does not have an ecclesial structure, no emerging constitution/by-laws, it has no formal authority/accountability structure, does not maintain offices or ordination, no formal member communities, thus it to call it a church assumes a kind of structure that I think is misleading.  I think it is more helpful to remember that every community or person influenced by the emerging conversation is also linked to a larger historic stream within Christianity. So a person or a local community is Presbyterian, Methodist, Mennonite, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Coptic, Orthodox, Quaker, Free Church, Assembly of God, Congregational, Baptist, or whatever tradition and shaped by by the emerging conversation.

In fact I have found it fascinating that often as people participate in the emerging conversation they find that their unique narrative shaped by their respective tradition becomes even more important to them.  Often inviting deeper study of their tradition’s history, theology, distinctives, contributions and even their liabilities or short comings.  This is part of the reason why the emerging conversation continues to be thought of a as a missional network.

Peace,

dwight

“MEMPHIS — In the back room of a theater on Beale Street, John Renken, 42, a pastor, recently led a group of young men in prayer.

“Father, we thank you for tonight,” he said. “We pray that we will be a representation of you.”An hour later, a member of his flock who had bowed his head was now unleashing a torrent of blows on an opponent, and Mr. Renken was offering guidance that was not exactly prayerful.

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”  [the article continues]

CCT has invited me to facilitate a couple of workshops on Emergent.

From their “What We Do” tab on their site they state:

“The purpose of Christian Churches Together is to enable churches and national Christian organizations to grow closer together in Christ in order to strengthen our Christian witness in the world. The by-laws list seven specific tasks:

1. to celebrate a common confession of faith in the Triune God,
2. to discern the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer and theological dialogue,
3. to provide fellowship and mutual support,
4. to seek better understanding of each other by affirming our commonalities and understanding our differences,
5. to foster evangelism faithful to the proclamation of the gospel,
6. to speak to society with a common voice whenever possible, and
7. to promote the common good of society and engage in other activities consistent with its purposes.

To fulfill its purpose of growing closer to Christ and to each other, Christian Churches Together focuses, in its annual meeting, on praying together, discerning the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer and theological dialogues, and providing fellowship and mutual support. Out of this process, participants discern how and when to take action together in common witness to our society. In 2006, CCT began to address the scandal of domestic poverty; specific proposals for CCT actions will be brought to the next annual meeting for consideration and decision.

CCT encounters Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”

Peace, dwight

I will post my first church in the series next week.

Peace, dwight

peace, dwight