Will Samson

The Church and Postmodern Culture Project

My good friend Geoff Holsclaw is coordinating a great new project entitled, The Church and Postmodern Culture. Check it out.

Center Stage for a Pastor Where It's Rock That Usually Rules

There is a great article in this morning's NY Times about Rob Bell.

Nightline Video

Bluer and Brian McLaren were on Nightline. Click here to watch it.

Article Recommendation

Jay Voorhees, a friend and pastor in Nashville, has written an excellent article for The Alban Institute entitled, By the People, For the People. Well worth the read.

Bluer on Nightline

John Musick and bluer will be features on ABC Nightline this evening. Click here for local listings.

Eating Your Own Dog Food

There is an old saying in marketing that a company should be willing to "eat their own dog food." This is a quaint reminder that if you believe in a product greatly enough you would be willing to consume it yourself.

Some things have been coming into sharp relief for me lately. Particularly, I am learning that I am not a very good consumer of my own words. One of the elements I regularly emphasize is the idea of "Emerging as a Value". By this I mean that the emerging church is more about what values the church should embrace than about embracing one correct form. So, within certain parameters, we should honor people wherever they are on their journey. A racist is not free to go on hating, but someone that happens to think differently about the organized church than I do is fine. I need to accept them where they are and be humble enough to admit that they may have this church thing more correct than me.

Some events lately have shown me how far I have to go in this journey. One significant event in this process was the Emergent Gathering at Glorieta last week. I was simply blown away by the many expressions of church that were evident there. Some were people in mainline churches acting on what they believe the mission of God is for their context. Others were coming from evangelical, and some from seeker-oriented, contexts. Still others had so thoroughly deconstructed that they have not been inside the doors of a church building in years. Despite these differences, most were bound together by a commitment to the mission of God and by the desire to find people with similar motivations.

There are some who perceive Emergent to be the newest trend, and so they perceive the growth in people attending the Gathering to be a sign of this trend. I'm not sure about that. At least, if it's trendy, I am not sure what the trend is other than a commitment to following God in the way of Jesus. So many people are making radical choices given their contexts. Because of this I am learning I may need to reinterpret the word "radical". For those who are on ordination tracks within established denominations, just being in conversation with the emerging church (or perhaps, "the church that is emerging") can be really threatening. For those in churches that are committed to a foundationalist view of scripture and the world, being willing to ask theological questions can mean the alienation of friends, coworkers, even family. And, for those of us who have step outside of the organized church, or were never inside the organized church, being willing to affiliate with others who are can feel foreign.

As I heard the stories of people's hopes and dreams for Emergent, I realized how far I have to go in getting a big picture for the work of God. I am praying that each new experience with others in the kingdom will help me see the similarities in our journey, not the differences. This is a value I claim to uphold. I pray that I can begin to really believe it.

Emergent Response to Critics

Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, Chris Seay have authored a response to the critics of Emergent. You can read it on the Emergent US site by clicking here. If you wish to read it via PDF as well as post it on your own site, click here.

More Reflections On The Convention

Here is a great post from Mike Clawson summing up some of the events of the recent Emergent Convention (via Mike King). Perhaps my favorite section, and the most ironic of Lawson's post, as well as both the Convention and the understanding of Emergent overall, is this:

"...the irony was that while most people would expect the Emergent Convention to have the hip, exciting worship, and the Pastors Convention to be more "traditional", in fact the reality was that while us young, supposedly "hip" emergent types were sitting in a sparsely decorated room listening to a 70-year-old woman (Phyllis Tickle) tell us bible stories, she was almost being drowned out by the vibrations coming from the drums from the contemporary worship bands playing for all the baby boomer, dockers and plaid shirt Pastors up the hall at the NPC's General Session!"

Interesting contrast, and one worth thinking about. I am less and less likely to frame this as an age or a generational issue. At 40 I hardly fall into the "young, hip" category. And one of the most "emerging people I have met in this conversation is Wes Roberts who has yet a few more years on me. As Mike pointed out so well in his post, the emerging church conversation is a theological conversation. It is a question of how we might be the people of God in our time. Yes, that might involve a rethinking of worship style. But for me it has been, first and foremost, a theological discussion.

Emergent US - 5 year Milestone

Tony Jones has posted some milestone thoughts on the Emergent US site entitled Five Years Ago, Five Years From Now. I would encourage you to go read them.

What I am amazed by is how much of the original vision has been fulfilled. At times I can tend to be a "glass half empty" kind of person. But one cannot read those original notes and not feel very positive about Emergent US and its influence on the American Church.

Pete Rollins' Blog

The Nashville Emergent Convention presented so many relationships, so many new friendships for this journey. I wish I had time to stop and reflect on each conversation here. I am even uncomfortable mentioning the long list of amazing people I met for fear I will leave someone out.

One of the blogs that I started reading as a result of my time in Nashville is that of Pete Rollins, from Ikon. I first saw Ikon present at Greenbelt and I was blown away. They came to Nashville this year and brought a wonderful, fresh perspective to the convention. With a PhD in Philosophy, Pete is more than just a theological prankster and an alt worship guys who seems to delight in shaking up people's safe assumptions of church, worship and our relationship to God. He brings a rich depth of understanding to issues of the emerging church. If you get a chance, stop by Pete's blog and check out what he is writing.