Here’s a link to a helpful piece by William McGrath called, Anabaptists: Neither Catholics nor Protestants. Also worth checking out is the young.anabaptistradicals.org. Peace, dwight
check it out.
peace, dwight
What is the future or possible futures of evangelicalism?
The movement of evangelicalism seems to be at a crossroads. The baton of leadership of the modern evangelical movement is being passed along. The political landscape is changing. The philosophical and cultural context in the America is changing. Ecclesiologies and understandings of leadership are morphing. Evangelical schools are wrestling with these deep shifts.
Who are next leaders picking up the mantel of leadership and what do kinds of evangelicalism might we anticipate in this transition? What are the greatest challenges for evangelicalism in this season? What practices and what theologies will be maintained, what requires reformation, what past theologies and practices do we as a movement need to repent of, and how might we envision this movement’s future.
These are some of the kinds of questions that a small group writers and thinkers are engaging in a new writing project. I am beginning to work on my essays for the collection and I’m looking for suggested reading and ideas to consider.
peace, dwight
I find myself looking for conversation partners. I’m looking for new paradigm churches (emerging, neo-monastic, simple, avant-churches, etc.), who are intentionally partnering with more established congregations in mission and mutual transformation. And the reverse as well, for established congregations who have pursued partnership with new paradigm churches.
I find myself wondering about how both groups are formed and transformed through their ongoing engagement. I wonder about those things that both have been invited into from the other: new expressions of life, greater sense of rooted-ness into larger ecclesial narrative, and of course the invitation to surrender in the context of relationship.
Churches are more missiologically informed today than almost anytime in the last 1,500 years of church history, and I’m wondering what impact the growing quest for contextual resonance may be having on the kinds of partnerships that establishes churches missionally form.
So if you, or someone you know of, is intentionally pursuing a relationship that invites an established and new paradigm church to dance together, please email me or simply reply to this post; I’d sure appreciate it.
Peace, dwight
I will be representing emergent village at the National Workshop on Christian Unity in Chicago later this Spring. I’ll have the privilege to present a workshop on emergent village and ecumenism.
BTW, Emergent may have some opportunities to include some other people at the ecumenical table as official delegates to a number of ecumenical gatherings, provided you have the funding to cover your expenses. If you’re interested please contact me, or Tony Jones.
Peace, dwight
My friend Jim Henderson together with the collaborative team at Off-the-Map are gearing up for a national conversation happening in Seattle, in early November. This year’s theme is Hear·Listen·Connect.Presenters include Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, Richard Twiss, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, and Todd Hunter and many others, I’ll even get to facilitate a workshop.
My working title for my workshop is:
Orthoparadoxy: embracing the gifts of sin, heresy, and ‘the other’
or
At-One-Ment: re-imagining ‘a good Christian’
I offered a brief outline of what I mean by “orthoparadoxy” in the new book, Emergent Manifesto of Hope. But I want this workshop to be a practical exploration of how embracing “otherness” is in fact what faithfully walking in the way of Christ is like. We will look at a bit of the theology that undergirds this gracious, Christ-like way of being but mostly we will stretch our connective imaginations for embodying an Orthoparadox way of being.
For those of you who have been redirected to my personal site from Hear·Listen·Connect I thought I’d offer a bit of biographical info:
I teach practical theology at Mars Hill Graduate School and for more than 11 pastored an emerging simple church on Seattle’s eastside. I am active in interfaith and ecumenical conversation; currently serving on the “Faith & Order Commission” of the National Council of Churches. I am active locally, nationally and internationally with missional and emerging church movements. My wife Lynette and our son Pascal live in Bellevue, Washington.
I hope to see you at this conversation.
Peace, dwight
I’m looking for links to, or contact info for simple churches and/or house churches in and around Seattle. If you know of one could you please comment on this blog entry or email me?
BTW: in an effort to try to link up with other NW simple churches I created, seattlesimplechurches.blog.com.
Peace, dwight
Spencer Burke of theOoze let me get a sneak peek at recently completed book, Out of TheOoze. Having sifted through hundreds of thousands of web contributions to theOOZE.com Spencer Burke has selected a few choice offerings, inviting us to encounter the concerns, wonderings, and awakenings of real people seeking to live faithfully in the Way of Jesus in an era of growing church crisis. I think there are 25 contributors to the book.
This is a good example of theology of the people, by the people and for the people.
Also if you haven’t registered for the Soularize learning party this fall, its time to get on it.
Peace, dwight
Just returned from the 50th anniversary celebration of the Faith & Order Commission of the National Council of Churches in the USA, which took place at the site of the first gathering at Oberlin College.
It was great to rub shoulders with people like: Martin Marty, Mark Calhoun, Jeffrey Gros, Susan Davies, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Don Dayton, Peter Heltzel, Avery Dulles, Mel Robeck, Jione Havea, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Amos Yong, Tom Finger, Kevin Mannoia, Mary Tanner, Carlos Malave, Mark Arey, James Forbes, Alberto Silva, David Cole, Paul Anderson, Thomas Ferguson and so many more.
Some papers of special note to those in the emergent conversation (sadly these are scheduled for publication and so they’re not available online yet):
I was at the event representing Emergent Village (as impossible as that may be) and trying to serve as a voice for the boarder emerging movement or “Avant Churches” as most of the groups represented there are historic faith traditions or denominations. I was given an opportunity to speak to my observations of the event at one of the final plenary sessions.
I continue to be impressed with both the hospitality and the genuine interest the people I’ve been meeting from within the NCC and the more historic traditions express toward us in the emerging conversation.
I have an ever deepening appreciation for the history of this ecumenical group and the courage that has been required for many of its participants to engage in these intrafaith dialogues, and found it striking to imagine the courage that may be required for this organize to serve the American Church in an increasing Post-Christendom, postmodern, post-denominational context.
Special thanks to Ann Riggs, Susan Davies, and Keelan Downton for pursuing, and making space for younger emerging theologians at the table.
BTW, Mark Calhoun has a good day-by-day narrative of the event.
Peace, dwight
Tomorrow I head out to the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the National Council of Churches’ “Faith and Order Commission.” The celebration is taking place at Oberlin College in Ohio which was the site of the first gathering half a century ago.
peace, dwight