http://www.codiacic.org/tonycampolo_preston.html

It’d be great if you could all come up

Cheers

Ray

Its only my thoughts but its been really hard for me to squeeze into the body of G_d because i want truth because i needed it, theres not like any point in living without it and that applies personally in peoples lives and mine as it does in translating how to live the gospel in an attractive and authentic way in life. Its like all one thing and the same.
See now you made me go on a friken rant..haha! I’m only kidding, i like your blog it is tite!

Thanks for your thoughts here. I remember in our conversation your suggestion of how emerging church would need to discover how to institutionalize if it was to move beyond ideas into concrete mission. I’m sure you said it better than that, but it stuck with me.

Warmly, Jason

Later when the US publishing world pressured us for a brand, I resisted ‘emergent’ since it really described a different movement in the UK. We used Terra Nova for a short time because the latin communicated well that this was a ‘western’ discussion and avoided the grandious idea that it reflected the larger global discussion. Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones decided later to use ‘emergent’ and by that time it seemed to communicate something authentic to what they were living out. From what I can tell the label has served that movement well.

The discussion takes a much different shape in areas without western or Christendom backgrounds. These discussion are happening quite well in very powerful ways, mostly outside of the western media and without having a global brand or lable. There is a season and time for all things, but I hope we can all be encouraged that God’s movements don’t start when a branded name arrives, and there is much that God is doing that is under the radar of western media, including our own blog spaces. That should encourage all of us.

I think by asking periodically if a brand or lable is serving us or restricting us is a great practice. Thanks for asking the question. I also appreciate that you are not saying the answer is to replace one lable with another. There is much to be learned by just letting relationships happen and let the labels form as late as possible. It seems that when a brand is involved, we are pressured to talk, define, narrow and defend. When there is no brand or lable at stake, we are more free to listen.

That’s an interesting thesis, that someone should explore in a PhD, by sampling emerging church types But from review of the people I know I think you’re on to something.

You said’ I want a church that can be deep and wide, fun and thoughtful, enthusiastic and reflective, joyful and sober, big and small, generous and obedient, organized and moving. That’s what i’m aiming for, at least.’

I think we’ll use that for a description of what we hope our church will be, and is

Loved your article. Your doing a great job. I read a lot of commenters on this subject and i think that you have a lot of good sense. I don’t always understand all the words, but thats ok!

My thoughts…
I have seen some monastic influences, but in my experience, they appeal to people who are melancholic, or flegmatic in personality.

For us sanguines, and cholerics, these expressions of church make us want to die.

We tend to like crowds, active fun, and are perhaps more outwardly expressive. Enthusiasm is a hallmark, and i think, a necessity in church. (Root En Theo – in God!)

I like the idea that all personalities can exist within a church of love, and grace. I don’t think the kingdom is meant to separate out people by personality. Some of us need to learn the disciplines of thinking, and solitude. Some of us need to have fun and express ourselves. We all need to embrace each other and understand each other.

However, these personalities seem to be influencing these movements just as much as the theological journey’s that people move through.

I want a church that can be deep and wide, fun and thoughtful, enthusiastic and reflective, joyful and sober, big and small, generous and obedient, organized and moving. That’s what i’m aiming for, at least.

Any tips? Hope your well.

Michael Williams

The emerging church conversation was so helpful to me a number of years ago as it resonated with so much of what I was feeling but kind of didn’t feel I had the permission to express. And yet I was also troubled my the more extreme ends that seemed to be chucking the “missional baby” out with the “spirit of intolerance” bath water! For me Brian MacClaren’s book “A Generous Orthodoxy” is genius in bridging many of these tensions. And I too sense that some forms of emerging church have now, with the benefit of all these conversations, actually emerged with a different set of values, which includes a commitment to continue to self-evaluate, knowing we have not, and will never, “arrive.” (Emerged but still emerging!)

As for the Sunday services/consumerist issue – we’re seeking to address that in our church (St Tom’s Sheffield) through mid-sized missional communities (made up pf 2 – 4 smaller groups) who meet “out there” in homes, cafes, walking in the peaks, etc, and when we come back together on a Sunday once or twice a month it’s more as a celebration of what God’s doing in all these communities – a coming home in order to go back out kinda thing. We’re developing central church to function more as a Minster to come back to as needed rather than the main thing…and some people never come to the big gatherings and that’s fine too.

Anyway, am excited to be on this journey with fellow travellers – still feels like just the beginning but I believe there is so much more to come!

I pray you’ll know God’s abundant blessings and favour on this new season in your life Jason – and I hope to meet you personally one day!

Linz

Personally I like to look at what different people are thinking and writing, and take what I agree with and make it my own theology/ecclesiology.

If others want to put a label on it, that’s up to them, but I will try never to put a label on the type of theology/ecclesiology I believe in and advocate, becuase all it ends up doing is being restrictive, without room for free thinking.

It may have things in common with different aspects of different tehological concepts/ecclesiologies but ultimately it won’t have a label. I would hope not anyway.