Emerging Pensees

Emerging Pensees

thoughts on God, faith, life, and the emerging church... btw, "pensees" is French for thoughts. get your mind out of the gutter ;)

about

Name: Mike Clawson
From: Austin, Texas, United States
About me: A follower of the way of Christ, a "postmodern" Christian, an amateur theologian/ philosopher, a husband, a father, a student, a friend...
More.. Contact: mike(dot)clawson
(at)gmail(dot)com

My Facebook Profile:
http://www.facebook.com/ mike.clawson1

Blog Categories

Have a Fair Trade Christmas Yes indeed! As I've long contended, free trade and fair trade properly viewed are synonymous, as it's impossible to really have one without having the other, so I wholeheartedly endorse this approach to bringing about fair trade (as opposed to the self-destructive approach of thinking that limiting free trade will somehow make trade more fair).

However, I don't think that this group (or at least this ad) gets quite to the destination. They claim that they'll end the dependency of the world's poor, when really they just plan to change who they're depending on. As you note, they fall somewhat into the fallacy of assuming that fair trade involves paying people more than their labor is worth, which (issues of value subjectivism aside) is not a good way to end dependence long-term. While it's a useful stop-gap measure, long-term we need to rethink what we mean by value and (perhaps even more critically) institute some major land reforms. If the current fair-trade mantra is just to change the people whom the poor are dependent on, they may be making slavery more tolerable but aren't doing away with the underlying problem. Only when the massive (and in my opinion illegitimate) land monopolies are broken up will individuals really have freedom from dependence, as then they will trade only from desire rather than from necessity. Which in turn brings me back to changing our notion of value: the solution isn't to pay people more than their labor is worth, but to make sure we're paying the money to the right people: our current system is rife with government intervention granting middle-men monopoly status, to the detriment of everyone except for the governments and the middle-men: if you get free trade, you eliminate the monoplies; if you eliminate the monopolies, you get fair trade. And while the above strategy for quasi-fair trade is a good starting point due to the dismal current situation, it's not sufficient long-term since the middle-men are just going to figure out a way to up their cut. I agree about getting rid of the middle-men, though there is still a question of what "labor" is "worth". In a purely market-driven economy the value of labor is driven entirely by supply and demand, so that someone's labor can end up of almost no value at all.

The problem with this is that the word "labor" obscures the fact that we're talking about people. Labor is not just some abstract means of production, it is real human beings. And there are those of us who believe that "labor" should therefore not be primarily tied to market-forces, but should instead be tied to what is necessary for a human being to live. Fair Trade thus seeks to address this kind of undervaluing of labor - saying that no matter what the "market" price of a commodity might be, we will choose to pay no less than a living wage to those who produced it. It's not about fixing the system, it's about refusing to exploit and take advantage of those who serve us by their labor.

As for fixing the system, that's a bigger and more complex issue, and I'm sure some of your suggestions will be helpful. However I will point out that "free trade" is somewhat of a myth. There cannot be free trade between nations when the rich countries have so many more starting advantages by which they can manipulate the system. Take farm subsidies for example. If the US signs a free trade agreement with a poorer, developing nation, there is no way that nation's agricultural industry can compete with ours, free trade or no, because we can (and do) simply drive down the prices of our commodities with massive government subsidies. "Free trade" thus just becomes an opportunity for the rich to once again gut the poor. Good insight Mike - lots of people pay crazy premiums for brands that give them a sense of identity and self worth.

As for the poor becoming dependent on fair trade, err, aren't we all dependent on things? Better to depend on dignified work than on handouts, subsidies or fate.

Free trade is fine when nations of equal economic status enter such agreements. However, when poor countries are involved and lectured by the rich about the importance of free international markets, it is way too often a way for the rich nations to insist that the poor nations open up their fragile domestic markets to mega-farms subsidized by unethical European and US government subsidies, or to other industries that totally destroy any indigenous enterprises. Free and fair is what we need, just like in elections. New Support for Jewish Intermarriage What I Like About the New Health Care Bill To bad it won't get passed the Senate. It's looking pretty badly. I do hope that maybe someone else will pick up the ball and continue the fight after it's denied. We NEED reform and we shouldn't give up. I don't think they'll let this go, and I hope they'll look at all sides and try to work with everyone. Republicans had many, many good points, and the Democrats were the ones to actually go through with this change (which is very brave)and initiate the big picture. My thoughts run more with Kucinich's analysis. Of course, his desired alternative is single-payer whereas mine is free-market reform, but I can definitely agree with him that (a) this bill is (at least marginally) worse than what we have now and (b) for all the faults I see with it, single-payer could hypothetically be better than what we have now.

The one thing I really don't like about it is individual mandates. Insurance companies have been fighting for decades to get these and it's pretty clear that forcing people to buy insurance no matter what it costs isn't a good incentive to keeping costs down.

Regarding your point (4), you should note that the bill also exempts the insurance companies from many types of lawsuits, so while they are required to keep accepting premiums from you without regard to pre-existing conditions, you'd have basically no recourse if they decided to deny any treatment anyway.

Regarding (6), the Right won't need to tip-toe around why they're voting against this. The most recent polls I've seen say that most members of the public expect their coverage to become both more expensive and worse because of this bill (I think they're right about the expensive part and couldn't say about the quality part), so the Right doesn't really need an excuse.

This kind of thing is what scares me most about a bill like this, as a government-subsidized "public" option can underperform private rivals and still offer lower costs due to taxpayer subsidies, leading to an eventual government takeover of the health care system (to an even more extreme degree than we already have). At that point, we get a de facto ban on abortions, birth control, contraceptives, HPV vaccines, HIV testing, and anything else conservatives decide to be against (as well as the things the loony-left is against, such as vaccinations in general) pushed through with rhetoric to the effect of "no, we're not banning it; we're just saying that the public shouldn't have to pay for it (and that private individuals shouldn't be able to pay for it)." Just curious where you are getting the 30% from #1. As I understand it, there are many non-profit insurance companies, which means 0% is going toward shareholders, right?
http://www.nonprofithealthcare.org/resources/BasicFactsAndFigures-NonprofitHealthPlans9.9.08.pdf
So is that 30% a worst case, or an average? I don't have a link to the exact figures John. It's just something I've read in numerous articles - that among private insurance companies, an average of 30% of every dollar spent for health care goes to overhead costs for the insurance company (including shareholder profits where applicable), as compared to single-payer government plans in other countries where, on average, about 10% of every dollar spent goes to administrative overhead.

At any rate, I don't know if these "non-profit" insurance companies are any better at keeping their overhead costs down than the for-profit ones, but I don't see how it really makes a difference since as of right now, the vast majority of Americans don't get any say in what insurance provider they have to use anyhow. It's either chosen for them by their employer, or (as in our case) their options are severely limited by various pre-existing conditions. This is not a free-market system since the vast majority of consumers have no choice in the matter. So, as I see it, the public option, the insurance exchange, and the lifting of pre-existing conditions exclusions are all measures that will serve to give us, the consumers, more options and more choices - at letting free market principles finally come into play for once, at least to a limited but still relatively greater degree than they are now. In that respect, you could almost call this a "Republican" style plan. It's certainly a lot less than what most liberals were hoping for, which should make all y'all conservatives happy. Julie on theOoze.tv! Haitian Storytelling I think this is a much healthier perspective on the nature of story. What its interesting is that this approach removes the power from the privileged educated elite. Christianity 21 Highlight Video Umair Haque's Generation M Manifesto awesome. Great food for thought. What should Christians be known for in 100 years? This is great. Do we HAVE to wait 100 years? I guess all that would take time and hard work....

You guys are on a roll. As always, I'm looking forward to reading more. Thanks Sally. Welcome! Russell Rathbun Guestblog: The Life and Death of the Church is a Beautiful Thing Guest blogger Russell Rathbun to visit next week! Methodist Lessons for the Emerging Church Sounds great to me! I began pastoring an emergent worship community last March. At first, I was relieved simply to be out of the institutonal church and free to minister in peace for a change. Now I find myself longing for a sense of connection to something greater than my own little experiment, because I'm well aware that there is a larger movement of the Spirit of which my small community is a merely a part. BUT, at the same time, I don't want to lose the freedom and diversity of our individual communities, so the general principles you outline work for me. Something about the way you phrased them also appeals to me more than the EV version, though I can't say why.

Incidentally, I was describing my worship community to a UMC minister friend, and he commented that it reminded him of a Wesley group. There's some confirmation for you. "Something about the way you phrased them also appeals to me more than the EV version, though I can't say why."

Must be the alliteration. ;) I don't think this is something you have to "do." I don't mean that emergents shouldn't think about who they are and what they are about, but that the movement from "experiment" to "definition" happens naturally over time.

I think of the example of google products such as gmail and google labs. All of these products start off, more or less, as experiments. The latest one, google wave, is still very much in its fluid form and will undergo many changes before the "final product." But the functions of the programs become more defined over time and gain many more "functions" (such as tags in gmail, google chat, gmail video chat, and sms chat), and soon it becomes its own "institution."

But there are always things trying to undermine the institution. To use the example of google, google wave seems like something that will make us rethink how we use gmail. It will probably outdate the "old" model, and we will begin the institutionalization of the "new" wave model.

The emergent church is a kind of "beta" program of the church. Not everyone yet knows what to do with it, but the institutionalization will happen and our children will have new ideas and new forms of the way they want to do church.

We can only live in our moment now and keep playing in the sandbox God has given us. I've been thinking about the process of emergence in biological terms lately. For example, I found a Monarch butterfly caterpillar during my morning walk last week. It was ready to pupate, but its natural habitat had just been mown down by the city maintenance folk. It was also sluggish from the unseasonably cool weather and about to cross four lanes of brisk traffic. So I took the caterpillar home and put it in an suitable container to do its thing safely. When it emerges from the chrysalis in a couple of weeks, I'll release it. Then it will pump up its beautiful wings and fly away.

Now, countless caterpillars become butterflies every year without my assistance. Moreover, I did not need to explain to the caterpillar what it was supposed to do or become. Those things come naturally to caterpillars. For this particular pre-butterfly, though, a little assistance at the critical moment in its journey and a safe space to change/emerge probably made the difference between completing its metamorphosis (and living to reproduce the next generation) or becoming a disgusting splat on Kanawha Boulevard.

I believe Danny is right that the emergent movement will become whatever it is meant to be and that the form will become clear to us in time. What I believe Mike is suggesting (if I'm understanding correctly and not just reading my own needs into his post), is analogous to the assistance I gave the caterpillar to make sure it had the chance to complete its journey and reproduce. Perhaps counterintuitively, I could almost sign on to those three points (though as an atheist, I'd need to revise the first one a bit.) However, I see a potential contradiction between the latter two and this:

I won't hide the fact that I would like to see the emerging church actually grow as a movement, and even take on more deliberate shape and structure. Like the Wesleys, I'm not at all interested in seeing it become a new denomination separate from all the others, but at the same time, I'm not with those who want to keep it so nebulous and unstructured that we can never really make a lasting impact on the broader church.

My life-philosophy is centered around the effect of the unstructured and on how individual actors can create a gestalt-society through the cumulative effects of their actions (Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is one example). As such, I wouldn't agree that something nebulous and "unstructured" can't have a lasting impact; indeed, while there is sometimes a crisis which crystalizes the preceding zeitgeist (such as the penning of the U.S. constitution reflecting developments in European philosophy in the period 1688-on), the real work was done not by the formalization but by the unstructured and often chaotic period leading up to the formalization. (And, to misinterpret the word, anyone who's ever looked at astronomical photographs knows that nebulae have quite a bit of structure, in a certain sense.)

Furthermore, the formalization is downright destructive to liberalism, as it defines a new conservatism. (For example, it's hard to imagine slavery would have lasted as long as it did if it hadn't been codified in the U.S. constitution.) To be nebulous is to welcome new ideas; centrally-imposed structure is necessarily both sectarian and hostile to certain forms of conversation. Danny - for things to "happen naturally", people still have to actually be doing something. If we all just sat on our asses and waited around for things to "develop naturally", nothing would happen at all. (Even at google, someone has to actually create those new apps, other people have to test them and refine them, etc.) That's what I'm talking about - about doing something to move things to the next stage. On the macro-level, yes, things "develop naturally", but on the micro-level, the level where cohorts and individual people operate, things happen because people like you and me actually do stuff.

Miko - I highly doubt that the very, very minimal level of "structure" I'm talking about would be at all destructive or hostile to further conversation. I'm not talking about starting an institution, or codifying a system of beliefs. My three descriptors were deliberately crafted to avoid precisely that. All I'm talking about is helping cohorts multiply and become more connected and less isolated from one another, and about trying to give some substance to what the emerging "gestalt" even is. If we can't put any descriptors on it, period (even one's as broad and inclusive as mine), then is it really anything at all?

At any rate, like I said to Danny, given the choice between doing something or doing nothing, and instead just waiting around for some "invisible hand" to make things happen, I'd rather do something, anything, to help the process along. There's too many problems in this world, and I'm too committed to the kingdom of God to be scared off by the fear of doing too much. Good points, Mike. Now if only we could get the United Methodist church to be more like Wesley. Great post Mike. I'm the husband of a UM pastor and we often comment that Wesley wasn't far off from being Emergent -- at least in his day.

But of course, as the last post alluded, the average Methodist sitting in the average pew in the average small church in 2009 is far-removed from the "Spirit of the Wesleys." But if you really followed and tried to live out what we advocate in our "Book of Discipline" then you'd be pretty close to Emergent -- as close as any mainline theology gets maybe?

And of course Wesley isn't unique as a reformer. So many times, the person(s) don't want to start a new denomination, they simply want to see reform in the church. (Stll going on today!) But change is so bitterly resisted sometimes that in order to be faithful to the Spirit's leading you feel that you have no choice but to go "outside the doors of the church" to get done what needs doing...

Some of that is probably happening now in many of our churches. People leave to start something new, because it was impossible in the "old" confined setting. What I call "the inertia of how we've always done it" can sometimes be very hard to overcome.

Other times, groups that favor change try to form "church within a church." They try and work around the resistance. That is what has happened, with some degree of success, at the small church my wife pastors. We aren't growing explosively, but we have started some new things and most newcomers we do get end up liking the new things we're doing to try and make what we do "more accessible" to a wider audience -- particulary youth and young adults.

I hope John & Charles would approve. :) I'm sorry Mike, but I don't see it working. I'd like to see it work; I love the analogy to the butterfly along with what's going on in Alan's church, but I fear that any attempt to encourage any structure will be met with hostility. The small guidelines may be for the best (I think they would) but it won't fly with the average emergent. At least, not with the emergents of my experience.

Let me focus on just the third point you offer: Conversation.
...we are bound together, despite (and really, in celebration of) any differences, by a simple commitment to be in relationship with one another. The emerging church is a safe place, a place to ask the questions, to explore theology, try new practices, and pursue God in both new and ancient ways without fear of condemnation or exclusion. The only requirement is that you have to likewise be willing to extend this safety and respect to others yourself. That doesn't mean we minimize or cover over our differences, quite the contrary, we celebrate and learn from them. All it means is that no matter our differences, love wins.

Not a chance. Over the last few years I've tried any number of times to gently engage and ask questions on a variety of on-line emergent forums. As soon as it is discovered that I'm still attending a mainline church I get flamed. My thoughts and questions haven't fit in, thus I get hung out to dry in my asbestos suit. My experience in these conversations is that most folks are open and accepting, as long as you agree with them; otherwise you're an idiot. Asking the average person identifying themselves as emergent to lovingly play nice instead of defending their turf won't be easy. (I keep coming back though because I feel in my heart that God is calling me to grow, broaden, and be his hands/feet/voice in ways far beyond what I've experienced thus far. It's like, I want to emerge and grow, but since I don't sing the correct party lines yet I'm not allowed into the club. Yes, I've used a variety of pseudonyms through time. That's why I feel the need to stay anonymous now.)

If this is the "safe place" shown toward someone who has merely been seeking to learn, how much more will you be shot down for asking people to play by a set of rules?

I still love and respect you brother, and will continue reading what I can. I just hate to think of you getting the vilification that I fear might come your way. Hey Nony Mouse -

Thanks for sharing your concerns and experiences. You said,

"Over the last few years I've tried any number of times to gently engage and ask questions on a variety of on-line emergent forums. As soon as it is discovered that I'm still attending a mainline church I get flamed. My thoughts and questions haven't fit in, thus I get hung out to dry in my asbestos suit."

I've had similar experiences myself at a lot of so-called "emergent" sites. Could it perhaps be that the problem is not so much that they are emergent websites per se, as that they are simply websites, period? What I mean, is that the web is not a particular conducive format for creating "safe space". When I wrote that in my post, I really did have in mind real, face-to-face communities like cohorts and churches. In those contexts my experiences with differences and diversity of opinions have been much, much more positive than what I've experienced online. Frankly, as much as I've benefited personally from online debates and discussions (I don't really mind a little heated disagreement now and then), the kind of safe-space that I was talking about is something that I think mainly has to happen in more immediate, tangible relationships. That's where I think the emerging church is at its strongest, which is why I'm still so passionate about multiplying and growing cohorts.

And of course, nothing is going to be perfect. We're all still sinners in need of grace, so while "safe space" is the ideal that I think most of us in the emerging conversation are striving for, the degree to which we actually achieve that in any given setting will of course vary. The only solution I see is for all of us involved in the conversation, you and me included, to just keep on trying to do better (instead of just throwing in the towel and refusing to try at all). Anonymous,

So far I've not had any negative experiences. However, as a fellow post-mainline emergent, I, too, have found that many of my questions and concerns are different from those of post-evangelicals. Mike very kindly directed me to some mainline emergent sites, so now my virtual ears are happily taking in both conversations.

P.S. The butterfly-to-be is still doing well. Thanks for appreciating the analogy. Hi Mike et al,

I stumbled here from the Mclaren post where he makes comment, and couldn't help but be struck by the comment from Anonymous...

Dear Anonymous,
Having been where it sounds like you are, and being a seeking person who happens to still be in a main line church, I feel your pain. I won't pretend to know exactly what you're experiencing, but let me share a little of my story & struggle.

I like your reference to an asbestos suit - very apt. Not to nit-pick, but were you talking to post-moderns in general or to "emergents" in particular? I ask because there are a couple places out there that, while under the general heading of Christion post-modern, more fit into the category of "Reconstructionists" as outlined elsewhere. Again, I shouldn't be picky or name names, but I personally got shredded on the Ooze.

Keep earnestly seeking what God is trying to teach you. It can com from many places and in many forms and may not be wrapped up in a conventionally christian package. It could come from a conservative pulpit, or from a street beggar praising God in all circumstances. It could come from James Dobson at one end, or my good friend Tim Wolf at Straight-Friendly on the other end. God has promised us that He will be speaking and that we will hear if we are listening. For me, the ongoing problem has been clearing out the noise to allow that "still small voice" to come through.

Hang in there, and don't be slow to ask Him for guidance. The Rapture (revised version) Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right No flames here Mike. I have to agree that using the "they started it" or "she did it too" argument is lame (trust me I know, I've used it) and adds no value to the discussion. Disagreements on politics or religion are not a bad thing, but it's best to discuss them with rational arguments rather then finger pointing and name calling. "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H.L. Mencken

Both parties have to resort to these kind of tactics, since neither has any real ideas.

Nonetheless, it's entirely proper to direct the majority of one's criticism against the conservatives. Republicans offer us 1984; Democrats offer us Brave New World. Both options suck, but until a third choice becomes available, I'll opt for the latter. No intense flames from this side either.

I do want to mention that just the word criticize falls into one of my pet peeves. Why criticize either side? I always thought the ideal (please don't say 'but that is not what you doing now') was to be offering a positive alternative. Constant belittling and partisan criticism is a significant part of the problem.

The main reason I have never identified with mainline Protestants is that I am not protesting anything. I stand for truth, love, charity, grace and forgivness.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. (Romans 12:18) I yearn for civil discussion of ideas with another person. However, I hardly ever find it. I think what you've described is human thing, in that we all want our tribe to win and be right. To do this, we either have to paint ourselves as better than the others or as bad as the others. I must confess, I've used the same tactics against others of differing politics. I think civil discussion is possible, but sometimes I wonder! I'll provide a weak defense of the "the other side does it to" argument, at least in the context of politics. (1) Most Americans consider politics a choice between two parties; it's therefore useful information for the voting public to know that the other party is just as evil as you. (2) Assuming that by "dirty politics," you mean activities that are legal but in undesirable, parties are presumably engaged in them because they're useful, and would be virtuous chumps if they gave them up while the other party kept engaging in them. For example, I don't like gerrymandering, and would prefer that both parties stopped doing it. However, the Democrats would be chumps if they stopped on their own, and I don't really want them to stop, if the Republicans are going to keep doing it when they're in power---that would be idealistic and virtuous, but it would give Republicans a huge unfair advantage. (And conservatives can reasonably swap the words "Democrats" and "Republicans" in the preceding sentence.) Another reason to criticize mostly Republicans is that one just *expects Democrats* to act in those ways, so it's hardly worth noticing, whereas for Republicans it's shocking and unacceptable. ;) (Just a joke.)

Yes, I wish our public dialogs were more civil. But for me it's only partly because I like peace and harmony. The rest of it is that sniping is so distracting and counterproductive. I want facts and reasoned discussion. I wish political debates were more like academic ones. Not that academics are all perfect ladies and gentlemen, but the overall atmosphere seems more reasonable.

Also, I think criticism is important along with giving constructive ideas. People need to know the limits as well as the core of proper behavior. And when someone creates ill will by the things they do, it needs to be dealt with in some way (criticism plus apologies at least) rather than pretending it didn't happen and letting the bad feelings fester. It can clear the air for more constructive dialog to happen. I'm going to disagree with Milton and say that I more often than not find conversations with another person quite interesting and edifying. The problems come when I (rarely) listen to AM radio or watch political TV news or (more frequently) turn to the Internet for such things. Abstracted from human bodies and human community, interlocutors in such spheres of "discourse" lose humanity in a hurry, dive right down past cheap fiction, and turn quickly into bathroom stall cartoon characters. Mike,

As I have seen from discussions you have had, and I have participated in, it appears to me that the "your side does it too" kind of arguement is more an ad hominem. It is a means of pointing out that it this kind of "bad" thing really bothers you, why do you predominantly point it out on the conservative side? And then that assumption becomes validated because most of the positions you promote are antithetical to the broader conservative principles.

Personally, I appreciate reading how a "progressive" views conservative positions because I know you are not the only one who sees that and it forces me to answer (at least in my own head) the question or disown that position.

That said, there is a difference when a conservative critisizes conservatives and when a former conservative critisizes conservatives. The prior is "nobody better criticize my momma except me." The latter seems more like the fallout of a divorce. John Mahan makes a good distinction, Mike. That, or something like it, is what has prompted me to object to the one-sidedness of your commentary at times. It usually sounds more like a bitter divorce' than a son who loves and respects his mother.

People like Mark Noll (who has numerous times very nearly turned in his "evangelical" card) are much easier for an evangelical or conservative to hear and receive and take seriously when they speak in criticism of conservatives and evangelicals. In my opinion maybe that's because of the presence of love and respect in their words of criticism and a sense of balance and fairness in their treatment of things.

Not that in order to have a right to ever criticize evangelicals you'd need to have remained an evangelical like Noll (which in other exchanges you've made very clear you have not). But having left one family, to keep on sniping (almost exclusively) at it for traits that usually are common *human* traits exhibiting themselves in ways particular to that family, as if rather than human traits they were indications of that particular family's unique evil . . . that can be more than a little frustrating to read. And yes, it can prompt a reader to point out that you're complaining about a human phenomenon, not a uniquely conservative or evangelical one.

You may say "a pox on both their houses" from time to time and you don't fully "fit" in either camp. I actually expect that over time in a mainline seminary and context you might fit less and less there, because you're clearly an independent thinker who can often see through BS coming from either direction. But for the couple of years or more I've been reading, most of your pox-throwing tends to go in one direction - the direction that you seem *least* fit in with anymore, as far as I can tell. I'd guess that when you were a conservative evangelical and Rush-listener your criticism was one-sided in the other direction rather than offering balanced, equal-opportunity criticism of conservatives, too.

It's not surprising that having realized you disagree with evangelicals and no longer are one, you'd be angry and want to take them on. "The heresies that men do leave/Are hated most of those they did deceive." But if some ex-pcusa or ex-episcopalian was several years out of their mainline context and had found a new, evangelical church where they fit in better but maintained a blog that they dedicated primarily to criticising the hypocrisies and sins of their old denomination while rarely if ever turning an equally critical eye on their new evangelical context - I'd have much the same reaction to them. And there are such people out there, no question.

I don't mean any of that as a flame. You were obviously bothered, and asked a question that you seemed to genuinely want answered honestly. Thanks for your thoughts Karl. I think my point was more that the "your side does it too" argument doesn't work with me because I'm not on the other side. Whether or not I'm an evangelical anymore (and really, if I'm not, then it wasn't a divorce so much as an abandonment... I never left, but I was pushed out), the fact remains that I haven't joined the PC(USA), nor the Anglican church, nor the Democrats, or whoever. Perhaps I don't have the "right" to criticize where I've come from. I don't know. Regardless though, the "your side does it too" argument is still irrelevant because it's not my side. And while whatever particular problem I'm pointing out may in fact be a general human trait, that still doesn't excuse the particular behavior being exhibited by particular people, and thus bringing up the "both sides do it, therefore it's just human nature" argument still just feels like a dodge to avoid actually dealing with the issue at hand.

In other words, it's not about me. I'm not on any "side" right now, so maybe that means I don't have the right to criticize anyone, I don't know. But it's still a crappy argument regardless. Forget about what side you think I'm on and deal with your own side's issues. Maybe it's not so much "your side does it too" as "people all around are doing the same thing, so why do you so frequently single out your ex, to tell everyone how evil she is?"

I agree that issues need to be dealt with, not dodged. Saying "we aren't the only ones" doesn't work as argument and it shouldn't be thrown out merely as a conversation stopper. But at times I think it's a valid point to bring up in the context of a larger discussion re. the issue.

It would be like someone from Wheaton who went to grad school at Cal Berkly complaining about the treatment of conservative opinion on Cal's campus by the majority of Cal students and citing it as an example of liberal groupthink and idea suppression. It might be valid to point out to the Wheatie that at her alma mater, the College Democrats were often treated similarly, if not worse, by their fellow Wheaton students. Not as a conversation-ender as if it invalidated what she just said about her experience at Cal or to discourage efforts to change things in her local context, but at least as a perspective check so she remembers not to demonize the people who are currently pissing her off, as if they were uniquely bad in this respect. I question this implication that it's inappropriate to criticize your "ex". I think those who have been an intimate part of something, and who are in many ways still a part of it, are often in the best position to see it clearly and comment on the things that need to be improved. Who else is going to do it? True outsiders don't know it well enough to really give a valid critique, and insiders who are merely content with the status quo aren't generally interested in even hearing about the flaws, much less doing anything to correct them.

This "you're not one of us anymore, therefore you don't have a right to critique us" seems like a rather convenient tactic for evangelicals to not ever have to face dissent, especially considering most emergents have not deliberately left evangelicalism, but instead, like myself, have been pushed out by those who didn't like the fact that we were questioning the status quo. According to this logic then, all they have to do is define us as "outside the camp", and thereby suddenly let themselves off the hook from ever having to listen to us again or take our critiques seriously. Yes, very convenient. When people talk about someone criticizing their ex, I think the idea is that the criticism is bitter, exaggerated, and biased against the ex. But I agree with your point about being in a position to know what to criticize. Andy says it well.

There is inside or used-to-be-inside critique of evangelicals (Noll, for example, or the Wittenburg Door, Ron Sider, Bob Webber, Dallas Willard, Scot McKnight or Rob Bell) that is plenty incisive but easier for evangelicals to hear because of the charity, balance, and sense of an attempt at fairness that comes across. There's less of a sense of "those people suck and I should know because I am/used to be one - let's look at another example of their hypocrisy/blindness/stupidity."

Not to say that more critique isn't needed. But I prefer the constructive and charitable variety. That seems to be the kind that is most likely to be heard and actually result in change.

Persistently one-sided barrages aimed at human tendencies as they show up uniquely in your former tribe as if that tribe was uniquely awful are likely to be met with rejoinders of "take a look around you - welcome to the human race."

Now if you want more of a "Don't Date Him Girl" type of website intended to warn everyone of how bad your ex was and to make sure the evil ex doesn't hoodwink anyone else, then that's a different thing altogether and I guess there's a place for such a site. But if it's about constructive dialogue between people on different sides of an issue - a real conversation rather than a harangue - then maybe more balance would help to actually bring about dialogue. And if you aren't offering the balance then don't be surprised if some of your conversation/dialogue partners try to. Not as a conversation stopper or excuse, but for the sake of clarity and fairness and context. I'm sorry if it seems to you that my blog is too one-sided Karl. Again, I'll point out that I'm perhaps "one-sided" because I don't have "another side" that I'm on. I'm not on whatever "other side" you want to point the finger back at, so to me bringing in the "other side does it too" is still irrelevant because who was talking about them in the first place? Why point out the speck in the mainliners eyes when we still haven't dealt with the plank in our own?

Of course you're entitled to your opinion on whether you think I'm more of a "bitter-ex" than an "insider". So I take it that you don't think there's anything to my suspicion that many evangelicals have deliberately tried to turn folks like me into "exes" so that they can thereby marginalize our critiques? Perhaps we wouldn't feel the need to be quite so critical if we felt like we were being heard.

Of course, here at my blog there's never any need to balance what I say about evangelicals, since I know I can count on you to immediately jump in with it no matter what I say. ;) Mike, I'm nearly as much of an independent as you claim to be. I'm not interested in dichotomized thinking and my opinions don't line up neatly in any particular category. I do appreciate balance and charity though. There have been many instances where I defended the emerging church to evangelical friends who were being imbalanced and uncharitable in their characterizations of it. I'll defend Sider and Wallis to people who think they're communists, Brian McLaren to people who think he's a heretic, Franky Schaeffer to people who think he's embraced the devil, and evangelicalism to people who think it's uniformly like Falwell and Dobson - just examples.

Unfairness, lack of balance and charity bug me - wherever they come from, whoever they are directed at and regardless of whether the person doing it is an insider, an outsider, or a used-to-be-insider. They get in the way of constructive dialogue and result in only ever preaching to the choir. Who is the intended audience and what's the intended purpose for your blog? Is it intended as a place for dialogue and to persuade the not-yet convinced including maybe even some evangelicals, or is it mainly a venting place for like minded people who are all angry at the same things, with disagreement discouraged? Maybe that's the key question and maybe I misunderstood its intent. I share many of your frustrations and concerns with evangelicalism. But I'm interested in a fair and charitable discussion with balanced context, and if my idea of what that entails isn't welcome I'll keep quiet.

You accused me before of trying to do something I've never intended to do - assigning you to a "side" or wanting to label you so as to dismiss or pigeonhole you. I don't care what side you are on or whether you are on all sides, or none or even if we scrap the idea of sides altogether. I care about fairness and a balanced context when weighing issues - and especially when leveling critiques.

As far as evangelicals forcing people like you out, I think it has to be looked at on a case by case basis re. where the fault lies. Theologically, at a point I think integrity demands one saying "I'm just not [or the body saying "you just aren't"] an evangelical anymore" rather than trying to play word games to say one still is evangelical even though one differs from evangelicals on almost everything. In that case maybe there's no "fault" just a need to go separate ways. In many other cases the (usually local) church is being insecure or power hungry or too narrow, and is silencing dissent wrongfully. In still other cases the dissenter who thinks he's being prophetic is just being an ass and deserves censure for attitude, more than for the content of his theology and his inability to see this ends up with his being on the outside with martyr/prophet complex still intact. Each case has to be taken on its own merits by those who know both sides of it. But yeah, I hear you that on the local level a lot of bad crap is perpetrated against dissenting voices in many evangelical churches.

Like I said earlier, many of the critiques levelled at the evangelical church by emerging folks are being voiced by people as diverse as Scot McKnight, Tim Keller, Rob Bell, Donald Miller, N.T. Wright and Mark Noll and many others. Maybe there's a reason those voices are mmore frequently heard and, if not always agreed with and followed, not forced out in toto.

Thanks for putting up with a dissenting voice. Listening Mike--I am enjoying reading your posts on Bonhoeffer. That little book, Life Together, helped me as a young pastor. It has been a while since I read him. I used some of his ideas in writing my theory of Pastoral Counseling for the AAPC. It was very helpful in integrating my theory of counseling, one being Family Systems, with my theology. Mike- Such a great post. I wonder though if we as communities don't seek this out in pastors. I think this is why the "rock star" pastor thing is a problem in most churches. One Sunday at our own lovely little church- the pastor wasn't present and the group had to break up into small groups and talk about some passage and I heard a very bright man say, "this is too much work. when is pastor x gonna be back?" I think this is one of the many reasons that pastors need to hear themselves talk- they think that is what they are supposed to do and the community often reinforces that. It would be cool if there were a group of pastors that started listening - I'm guessing everyone would benefit. It is awesome that you are conscious of that in yourself and attend to it. Thanks for a thought provoking post. Hey Mike :)

Thought of you and Julie tonite and thought I'd peek in on your life. Didn't we read Bonhoffer for one of Jerry's classes? My favorite line from the book was "Christian community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives." That might be Zeeb Revised Standard Version...but it struck me. If you're up for reading someone else's blog, John (whom you met in Oregon), one of my favorite pastors who listens has been writing a blog this year...it began as a communication outlet after a dance with death stole voice and most movement from him...and has grown into a unique ministry across the globe in a way that only Jesus could orchestrate. www.johnstumbo.org You can get the full story if you click on the the archives to see the SAC mass emails from when he was dying. And hopefully soon a video from when he spoke and helped install our new lead pastor...and officially stepped into a new associate role. Leadership and humility at its finest! :)

I appreciate about you and Julie that you listen. Even at 2am with a crazy girl holding the bannana of incarnational ideas in her hand, drinking too much Darjeeling and putting things on her head. :)

May Jesus pour out His grace into your hearts and shape you into pastors who are quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Much love...
cz Hey Christina, thanks for dropping by. Sorry to hear about Pastor John, I do remember meeting him. He seemed like a great guy. I'm glad to hear that God has given him other ways to minister.

Hope you're doing well. We're hoping to make it to Seattle next summer to put on a conference for Julie's book. Maybe we can connect with you as well while we're in the region? I would love that. :)

I pop up to see JOhn and Lisa from time to time. :)

John has had an incredible journey. God is pouring out healing in an unexpected way...it's a messy hard journey...but some beautiful things too. I'm excited to see where the rest of it goes. If you have a chance check out what he has to say. :) New Structure and Passion for Emergent Village

Recent Reads

Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan Hatch

Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Letters and Papers from Prison
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Story of American Methodism
by Frederick Norwood

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation by Karl Barth

Friend's Sites

onehandclapping
-Julie Clawson

fluctuating certainty
-Karen Gerber

Danno's Dangerous Mind
-Dan Horwedel

T(r)oy Marbles
-Troy Cady

Anglobaptist
-Tripp Hudgins

The Thinkulum
-Andy Culbertson

A Little Off Key
-Amy Toornstra

unconventionalwisdom
-Jen Pare

(Not So) Straight from Seminary
-Brandy Daniels

MattTheTroll
-Matt Cavanaugh

Love is the most excellent way
-Helen Mildenhall

Disonanz Cognitif
-Derek Berner

Wild Rumpus
-Rebecca Murphy

This Just In...
-Inouye Family

Discovering Pathways
-Laurel Dixon

Postmodern Questions
-Thomas Just

Clawson Family Blog

Classic Pensees

Previous entries

Join the Emergent/C Mailing List

The Gross National Debt

Locations of visitors to this page

Recommended

Julie's Book!

Events

Off the Map Live 2009: Mirrors and Maps
Seattle, WA - Nov 20-21

Sites

Blogs

Political Stuff

Books

The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell

The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

Church Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

Fear & Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard

Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli

God's Politics by Jim Wallis

Articles

Music

U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

Green Day - American Idiot

David Wilcox - Into the Mystery

Caedmon's Call - Share the Well

Passion: Hymns Ancient and Modern

Jake Armerding

Tourniquet - Vanishing Lessons

Emerging Churches

Mosaic - Los Angeles, CA

Vintage Faith Church - Santa Cruz, CA

Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler - Chicago, IL

Wicker Park Grace - Chicago, IL

The Emmaus Community - Chicago Heights, IL

Fusion Church - Lake Zurich, IL

Life on the Vine - Long Grove, IL

Mars Hill - Grandville, MI

Waters Edge - Hudsonville, MI

Threads Church - Kalamazoo, MI

Solomon's Porch - Minneapolis, MN

Oasis Madrid - Madrid, Spain

Mosaic - Austin, TX

Vineyard Community Church - Shoreline, WA

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Have a Fair Trade Christmas

For the past few weeks our church here in Austin has been using the following video from Trade as One to encourage us to buy Fair Trade this Christmas season. (Which is one of the reasons I love our church here.)

The great thing about this is that it uses the system itself to work for justice. While undermining our consumer capitalist world-system may ultimately be necessary, it's not replaceable overnight, and those of us who are still going to shop for Christmas presents and still need to buy other things from time to time as well need ways that we can make a difference even within this system. So if you're going to shop, buy Fair Trade wherever and whenever possible.

BTW, for some reason as I watch this video, I keep thinking of one of the most ridiculous arguments against Fair Trade that I've ever heard, which is that Fair Trade won't work because it asks people to pay more for no tangible benefit to themselves except the "Fair Trade" label, and the warm fuzzy feelings they get from helping others. And yet we consumers choose to pay more all the time for even more ridiculous intangible benefits like designer labels, brand names, etc. and the warm, fuzzy feelings they get from being "hip" and "stylish" (even when you can buy something that looks exactly the same for a fraction of the price at the discount store down the road). If people can be induced to make purchase decisions for these sorts of silly reasons, why can't we hope that people can also be persuaded to choose Fair Trade items for much better reasons. And why not let it start with you and me this holiday season?

Labels: Fair Trade, social justice

posted by Mike Clawson at 4:05 PM | Permalink | 3 comments

Links to this post

Saturday, November 14, 2009

New Support for Jewish Intermarriage

A good friend of mine recently got married to a great Jewish guy. She is an emergent Christian who is an active part of a Presbyterian emerging church. As you can imagine, there are some unique challenges that go along with a committed Christians marrying a practicing Jew. In characteristic fashion, my friend has enthusiastically dived head-first into these challenges and is passionate about helping others who are also experiencing them. As part of this she has started a new blog called Fifty Percenters: in praise of the non-traditional Jewish family. As she put it to me:

I am working on a blog project with a woman in Montreal that is trying to create an online community of people who are engaging Judaism in non-traditional ways. We are trying to move beyond the discussion of whether or not intermarriage will destroy the Jewish people by working from the premise that it will not, that it is here to stay and that some of us need to take leadership roles for how to constructively help Judaism adapt to this new dynamic.

It seems like a worthwhile project to me. If you or anyone you know are touched by this issue of Jewish intermarriage or you're interested in simply being a support or finding our more, I'd encourage you to check it out and pass along the link to others.

Labels: Judaism

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:19 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Sunday, November 08, 2009

What I Like About the New Health Care Bill

Of course no piece of legislation is perfect, and quite frankly I personally wanted something far more radical and yes, "socialistic", than this current bill (which, despite what you'll hear from the Right, bears almost no resemblance to anything that could justifiably be labeled "socialism"). Nonetheless, I am very excited that the House finally passed an honest to goodness health care reform bill that seems to actually have some decent features that will directly make life better for me and my family. I haven't looked closely at every aspect of this bill yet, so I can't speak to all of its shortcomings (of which it's sure to have many), but here are a few of the things I like about it:

1) A public option, which, besides creating real competition that will force insurance companies to actually serve their clients better, will also give folks to chance to opt-out of the crappy private system if they want to, and stop sending 30% or more of our premiums to line the pockets of insurance company shareholders.

2) Creates a health insurance exchange that will enable individuals like me who don't get insurance through an employer to get the same benefits that group buyers do.

3) Caps out-of-pocket expenses, which for me and my family can currently be more than $20,000 annually.

4) Prevents insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, which is the major reason Julie and I currently have absolutely no choice in which health insurance we use and therefore no recourse whenever Humana decides to screw us over. If other insurers would cover us, we could shop around for a better plan and actually let the market work the way it's supposed to.

5) Subsidies to help poor Americans get coverage - another measure that might benefit my family directly, since, as a graduate student, I currently have very little actual income. I also think that, whatever other nice features the bill offers, the most important thing is making sure that the millions of people who can't currently afford health care are in fact covered. No one should have whether they live or die or can live healthily be determined by how much money they (or their parents) make.

6) An amendment to keep federal funds from covering abortions (though individuals still have the right to pay for their own abortion coverage). While I know most liberals won't like this one, I for one am glad that this issue will be taken off the table and therefore cannot be used as a red-herring by the Right to block the entire bill. I also think its fair that those of us who disagree with the practice of abortion shouldn't have to have our tax dollars used to pay for them.

Anyhow, here's to hoping these features survive in the Senate's version of it. It's exciting to think that something might actually happen with all of this. That substantial change for the better is in fact possible.

Labels: politics

posted by Mike Clawson at 10:00 PM | Permalink | 4 comments

Links to this post

Friday, November 06, 2009

Julie on theOoze.tv!

Labels: Everyday Justice, Julie

posted by Mike Clawson at 10:59 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Haitian Storytelling

I recently encountered a great quote from the book Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, a sort of personal narrative/anthropological study of one scholar's experiences with Haitian Vodou:

"Family memories are held collectively; some persons know much more than others, but no one knows it all. The full story, or I should say, the real story, cannot be written down. The full story can only be performed by a noisy family group, with each member adding his or her versions. The real story exists only for the transitory period in which the family takes pleasure and finds meaning together in bringing their past alive."

I've experienced this sort of thing a few times even in our own culture - think about the times when you've just got back from some really amazing awesome experience with a group of friends (like after a youth group retreat or a road trip), and all of you are trying to explain it to someone else at the same time - but it's much more rare than in Haitian society apparently. I think this is one of the great advantages that a predominantly oral culture like theirs has over a written culture like ours - for us stories become fixed, not dynamic or collaborative, and we are thereby deceived into thinking that there is only ever one, authoritatively "true" rendition of the past.

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:56 AM | Permalink | 1 comments

Links to this post

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Christianity 21 Highlight Video

Here's the highlight video from Christianity 21. Julie shows up at about the 1:33 mark:

Labels: Christianity 21, Julie

posted by Mike Clawson at 5:22 PM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Umair Haque's Generation M Manifesto

Umair Haque, an innovative strategic business advisor, has posted an awesome statement of what so many of us are starting to see is wrong with the world, and, more importantly, what we'd like to see instead. It's encouraging to see someone in the business world say things that resonate so deeply with the same kinds of things those of us in the church world have been saying for quite a while now as well. Not being in that world, I don't know whether I agree with every single point he makes or not, but I do think he's pointing in the right direction. Check it out:

The Generation M Manifesto

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community

PS - Fire away in the comments with thoughts, questions, or — because I've left a ton of awesomeness out of this post — more examples of Gen M people and organizations.

Labels: Generation M Manifesto, Umair Haque

posted by Mike Clawson at 8:05 PM | Permalink | 1 comments

Links to this post

Friday, October 16, 2009

What should Christians be known for in 100 years?

Julie spent last weekend up in Minneapolis at the Christianity 21 conference. She has an update here. I'm still totally jealous that I couldn't be there. :)

Anyhow, one of the cool things that came out of the conference was a list Lauren Winner presented of 21 Things Christians will hopefully be known for by the end of the 21st century. Here's what she suggested:

By the end of the 21st century, Christians will...
1. Be peacemakers.
2. Be expected to be the first ones to show up when disaster strikes.
3. Rest, because they know they're not the ones in charge.
4. While resting, reconfigure their work.
5. Live well in their bodies, whether by their diet, their sex lives, or the clothes they wear.
6. Practice boredom. They will not succumb to the "fetish of the new or the cult of novelty" when it comes to their faith.
7. Be truth-tellers, even if the answer is "I don't know." Even "authenticity" and confession can be a pose.
8. Practice silence in small and big ways, including in solitude.
9. Live in communities where everyone has access to power, and everyone can and will share it with others.
10. Live in communities where women can do anything.
11. Go to church with the people they live near.
12. Persist in making Kingdom demands. This means taking the same request to God, over and over!
13. When we think about God, we think about what needs to change next. This is largely informed by Tozer: what we think about when we think about God is the most important thing about ourselves.
14. Eat fewer strawberries. We will tread lightly on the planet and not risk the energy and harm to our planet just so we can have strawberries in January.
15. See ourselves as small characters in a larger story. As Winner's colleagues at Duke suggest, a "saint" can fail in a way that a "hero" cannot, which opens the doors to ideas like forgiveness and new possibilities of God.
16. Lament. ("We don't do this well. Jews do it a bit better.")
17. Throw good parties. Afterall, we're here to practice for the heavenly banquet!
18. Not gossip. This means talking about someone who is not present. Period.
19. Have unity without obliterating diversity, and that's because of the Trinity.
20. Understand something about grace (despite our 19 wonderful attributes above).
21. Describe reality and the spiritual sacraments in such a way as to "make mouths water and hearts hunger."

via Kyria Blog

Labels: Christianity 21, Lauren Winner

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:37 AM | Permalink | 2 comments

Links to this post

Monday, October 12, 2009

Russell Rathbun Guestblog: The Life and Death of the Church is a Beautiful Thing

As promised, Russell Rathbun has dropped in to share a bit of his new book, nuChristian: Finding Faith in a New Generation. Russell is a great guy and a very good writer, and this new book, while short and to the point, carries a great message. Here's what his publisher had to say about him and the purpose of the book:

Russell Rathbun is a founding minister with Debbie Blue of House of Mercy, a pioneering emergent church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is also the author of the new book nuChristian: Finding Faith in a New Generation (Judson Press) which responds to recent reports of Christianity's image problem. In nuChristian, Rathbun offers practical suggestions for leaders who want to reach out to the new generation with a Christlike community that is

Transparent
Holistic
Loving
Engaged
Just
Humble

Rathbun invites us to move beyond statistics and defensiveness to hear a new generation’s critique and to be authentic about who we are as flawed human beings saved by a gracious God.

Below is an excerpt adapted from nuChristian:

The Life and Death of a Church Is a Beautiful Thing

There is the sort of general belief that a church is an institution that has a long, long history and therefore should have a long, long future. Of course, there are historic churches in this country that have been around for 150 or 200 years; in Europe some have been active for 500 years and a few for nearly a millennium. However, the average life of a church is around 60 years, which is just long enough for young energetic believers to question their parents’ understanding of what church should be. These youthful believers often band together and form a new church, to grow that church and to grow up together in that church, to get married there, to have children and raise them, to watch their children leave, to play golf together when they’re retired, and then to die and be buried there. The average life of a church is about the time it takes one generation to live their lives together as an expression of the body of Christ. I think this is a beautiful thing. It should not be mourned but celebrated.

Christianity is a dynamic faith, a moving faith. Jesus is always on a journey, always moving. In the Old Testament, the patriarchs were always moving—from one territory to another, usually in obedience to God’s call. It sometimes seems that when the people of God stop moving and set down roots, that’s when things start to stagnate. In the arc of history God’s ability to reconcile the world to God’s self will not be hindered if your local church closed its doors because the next generation goes off and starts something new, in the same way God’s work would not be hindered if my church closed its doors.

Labels: nuChristian, Russell Rathbun

posted by Mike Clawson at 8:41 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Guest blogger Russell Rathbun to visit next week!

I'm excited to announce that ~~sometime next week~~ UPDATE: this coming Monday, author/pastor Russell Rathbun will be contributing to Emerging Pensees as part of a blog tour for his new book, nuChristian: finding faith in a new generation, which is a response of sorts to Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyon's recent popular book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters. Whereas Kinnaman and Lyon's book highlighted all the negative impressions younger generations have about Christianity, Russell's book tries to offer some solutions to these perceptions. Specifically, he encourages churches to accept these criticisms (rather than getting defensive about them) and seek instead to be authentic about both who we are, and who are striving to become.

Anyhow, Russell is a great guy who I've had the privilege of hanging out with on a couple of occasions, and his previous book, Post-Rapture Radio was nothing short of genius; so yeah, be sure to check back here in a few days to see what Russell has to say.

Labels: nuChristian, Russell Rathbun

posted by Mike Clawson at 8:25 PM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Monday, October 05, 2009

Methodist Lessons for the Emerging Church

I'm currently in a class on the history of Methodism. It's really fascinating, especially these past few weeks as we've looked in-depth at the life and ministry of John Wesley and the beginnings and growth of the Methodist Revival. Basically Methodism started as a renewal movement within the Church of England, John and his brother Charles never intended to start their own sect or denomination. They simply wanted to revitalize faith within the existing church. To do this John spent his time traveling the length and breadth of England, preaching to crowds in churches and fields, and, out of this, starting hundreds of "societies" (what we would call small groups) whose purpose was to encourage those who responded to his revival messages to continue deepening in their faith and practice of the Christian life. Of course Wesley wasn't the sole originator of the Methodist revival. There were dozens of popular preachers traveling throughout England (and the American colonies) at this time who were called by the name Methodist, some of whom were connected with John's efforts, and many others who disagreed with him on various points and were doing their own thing separate from John. In fact, often "Methodist" societies would spring up independently in various places, and John or Charles would come along after the fact and offer to connect them into their larger group of "United Societies". Eventually this movement grew too large and was forced to separate into a new denomination, but that in itself is a testimony of sorts to the success of the Wesleys in bringing about the change they wanted to see in the church.

As I read about Wesley's life and the beginnings of the Methodist movement, I couldn't help but be struck by the many parallels with the emerging church movement in our own day. While the theology and emphases are somewhat different, in terms of methods and organization, it's very similar. The emerging church is not a centralized movement, rather it is a kind of "revival" or "renewal" that is popping up all over the place, in lots of different contexts and for lots of different reasons - sometimes within the existing church, and sometimes as new church plants or separate groups. Of course there are a few well-known speakers, authors, and influencers who work to draw people into the movement, but no one person who is the sole head or leader in any sense. And like the early Methodists, there are lots of little emerging groups (e.g. cohorts, churches) that are popping up everywhere, sometimes in connection with network like Emergent Village, and sometimes completely on their own. These groups are diverse in their emphases and particular interests, but they are united in their desire to see the church "emerge" into something new and wonderful.

I won't hide the fact that I would like to see the emerging church actually grow as a movement, and even take on more deliberate shape and structure. Like the Wesleys, I'm not at all interested in seeing it become a new denomination separate from all the others, but at the same time, I'm not with those who want to keep it so nebulous and unstructured that we can never really make a lasting impact on the broader church. Call me crazy, but I actually believe in the message and values of the emerging church, and I believe that the things we are talking about and discovering together about theology, about worship, about the church, and all the rest, are important and needed in the whole body of Christ. I want to see us make a difference. I want to see real change happen in both the church and in the world. I'm not content to do our own little thing, to be exclusive or unengaged with the rest of the church. I want to see this movement grow, to become more connected with one another, and to begin uniting around a core set of identifiable passions and values that we want to share with the rest of the church.

I think Wesley has some things to teach us about how to do this. In my opinion, there were two main things that he did which gave the Methodists the push they needed to go beyond a nebulous and momentary revival, to a full-fledged movement with lasting results. First, he traveled and, by his physical presence, connected the diverse societies into something larger than themselves. This is something that I think is desperately needed currently, among the many, various "emerging-ish" churches out there certainly, but most especially among all the cohorts currently affiliated with Emergent Village. In my experience cohorts are a vital part of the emerging conversation - they're where local, face-to-face community happens, where new and challenging ideas can be worked out in a safe environment, and where these new ideas can then be carried out to the various established churches (and other spheres of life) represented in a cohort to produce real fruit for the kingdom of God.

Pesonally, I've been working on the Cohorts Team of Emergent Village for the past few years, and in that time I've received literally scores of requests for new cohorts all over the country, and helped many of those get off the ground by encouraging and advising folks (usually via email) on how to do that. However, I've also seen a lot of cohorts or attempted cohorts fizzle and die for lack of a clear sense of purpose, connection or direction, and a lack of continued support, encouragement, and equipping by folks like myself who are just too busy to act as consistent liason for Emergent Village. To put it shortly, what I think we need is a John Wesley type who could dedicate himself or herself to multiplying, growing, equipping and encouraging these cohort groups. More than that, an Emergent John Wesley could help connect each of these scattered "societies" into something larger than themselves, help them not feel so alone or overwhelmed - and to help give them a purpose of reform and renewal in the larger Body of Christ that would go beyond simply deconstructing and complaining about what is wrong with the existing church. I intend to write a follow-up post soon outlining even more specifically what I think an Emergent John Wesley job description would entail.

The second major thing Wesley did to build the Methodist movement was to put a lot of effort into writing and defining what the core theology and beliefs of Methodists were all about, and then disseminating this to the various preachers and leaders of the societies. Frankly, I think something like this is also needed currently in the emerging church. Now I know emergents, by definition, shy away from anything like a "statement of faith", and that's as it should be, IMHO. Part of the point of the emerging conversation is that we are learning and growing together regardless of any theological differences. However, the flip-side of this openness is that we can tend to lack any sense of cohesion or common purpose. What is it that makes one "emergent", and what's the point anyway? What's our message, what are we hoping to accomplish? I've given some thought to this (and, again, I hope to write a follow-up post outlining this in more detail), and I think it is possible to identify a few unifying aspects of the emerging movement that nonetheless don't limit or exclude the diversity among us. In good evangelical fashion I've boiled them down to three, semi-alliterated points:

Kingdom: by this I mean a commitment to working on behalf of Christ and his Kingdom in this world (in all the various forms this can take). This would include terms like "missional" and "social justice", as well as "evangelism". Bottom line, is that I think all emergent folks are united by a passion to work for the good of the world on behalf of God. I think this can be a driving purpose of our efforts without unnecessarily narrowing or limiting the emerging movement in a way that excludes any who want to be a part of it.

Convergence: rather than being sectarian, or claiming (as most other reform movements have done in the past) that we alone finally have figured out the right way to be Christians and do church, the emerging conversation is described by what many have called a deep ecclesiology - a commitment to honor and serve and learn from the church in all her forms. As Doug Pagitt put it once, we don't want to define ourselves by what we're are not. Rather, we want to define ourselves by what we're kinda like - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Anabaptist, Anglican, Pentecostal, Reformed, Evangelical, Liberal, whatever. While we have critiques of all of these, we also embrace all of these as well. We're not an opposition movement, we're an inclusion and renewal movement.

Conversation: by this I mean the relational aspect of this movement - we are bound together, despite (and really, in celebration of) any differences, by a simple commitment to be in relationship with one another. The emerging church is a safe place, a place to ask the questions, to explore theology, try new practices, and pursue God in both new and ancient ways without fear of condemnation or exclusion. The only requirement is that you have to likewise be willing to extend this safety and respect to others yourself. That doesn't mean we minimize or cover over our differences, quite the contrary, we celebrate and learn from them. All it means is that no matter our differences, love wins.

(Incidentally, these parallel the four Values of Emergent Village, though I've included both number 1 and 3 in my first point.)

What I would like to see is the cohorts and churches associated with the emerging movement become more explicit and vocal about these three defining characteristics (or some variation of them) as a defining statement of what we're all about. I'd like to see these (or something like them) become the unifying and driving force behind everything we're trying to accomplish - something to give shape and purpose to the movement, without thereby limiting it or excluding others. Personally I think these three are broad and inclusive enough (and yet also specific enough) to fulfill this goal. I think these are what we need to working towards as we seek to renew and reform the existing church. Just as Wesley intended the Methodists to be an inclusive movement that would bless the whole church, the emerging church needs to likewise unite around a few core values that we want to offer as a gift to the whole Body of Christ.

Of course all of this is just in my personal opinion. What do the rest of y'all think?

Labels: Emergent Village, emerging church

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:12 AM | Permalink | 12 comments

Links to this post

Monday, September 21, 2009

The Rapture (revised version)

As a kid I used to read those horrendous/disturbing/hilarious "Chick Tracts" - those, little cartoon tracts that express some of the most extreme Fundamentalist theology out there; e.g. Catholics aren't really Christians and the Pope is the Anti-Christ, role-playing games are a recruiting tool for full blown witchcraft and Satan worship, "Christian" rock musicians have sold their soul to Lucifer, STDs are God's punishment for having sex outside of marriage, etc. Even back then I knew there was something not quite right about their theology.

Anyhow, maybe you've seen this one that deals with the End Times and the Rapture:

Well postmodern philosopher/writer/iconoclast Pete Rollins just recently took this whole theme and created a parody version of a Chick Tract, but with a very different message.

Unfortunately the whole tract is not up online yet (though you can see a few panels here), and currently the only way to get a copy is in person from Pete (which Julie managed to do this past weekend at a conference they were both speaking at). However Pete did post the basic text of it online and I've copied it below. Read it all the way through to get to the twist at the end.

The Rapture
by Peter Rollins

Just as it was written by those prophets of old, the last days of the Earth overflowed with suffering and pain. In those dark days a huge pale horse rode through the Earth with Death upon its back and Hell in its wake. During this great tribulation the Earth was scorched with the fires of war, rivers ran red with blood, the soil withheld its fruit and disease descended like a mist. One by one all the nations of the Earth were brought to their knees.

Far from all the suffering, high up in the heavenly realm, God watched the events unfold with a heavy heart. An ominous silence had descended upon heaven as the angels witnessed the Earth being plunged into darkness and despair. But this could only continue for so long for, at the designated time, God stood upright, breathed deeply and addressed the angels,

"The time has now come for me to separate the sheep from the goats, the healthy wheat from the inedible chaff"

Having spoken these words God slowly turned to face the world and called forth to the church with a booming voice,

"Rise up and ascend to heaven all of you who have who have sought to escape the horrors of this world by sheltering beneath my wing. Come to me all who have turned from this suffering world by calling out 'Lord, Lord'".

In an instant millions where caught up in the clouds and ascended into the heavenly realm. Leaving the suffering world behind them.

Once this great rapture had taken place God paused for a moment and then addressed the angels, saying,

"It is done, I have separated the people born of my spirit from those who have turned from me. It is time now for us leave this place and take up residence in the Earth, for it is there that we shall find our people. The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth. The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant."

And so it was that God and the heavenly host left that place to dwell among those who had rooted themselves upon the earth. Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God. The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it.

Just speaking personally, I love Pete's twist on this dispensationalist doctrine. I grew up with this kind of eschatology - indeed, until I got to college I had never even heard there were any other beliefs about the end times, nor that "the Rapture" was an extra-biblical concept invented by an English sectarian in the mid-1800s - and while it's been a long time since I've held to those beliefs (not since a former pastor introduced me to preterism), I don't think I realized until reading Pete's tract just how self-serving and uncompassionate the theology of Rapture truly is. It's all about escape - about leaving behind a world of suffering people so that all us Christians can go relax and party in heaven while our friends and neighbors and loved ones are stuck down here to endure hell on earth. But what in the world could that sort of message have to do with the Christian gospel about a Suffering Servant who came down from heaven to live among us and offer to help bear our burdens? What does it have to do with the message this Suffering Servant proclaimed about God's will being done "on earth as it is in heaven", and NOT "may we escape this earth to go live with God in heaven"? I love Pete's message that it is those who care more about the suffering and injustice in this world than they do about escaping it to be with God that are actually closest to God's own heart. To me that's what it really means to be a follower of Jesus, the Suffering Servant.

Anyhow, I hope these tracts become available for bulk-order soon. I think it's a message that needs to get out there, and I for one will be more than willing to hand them out on street corners or leave them at restaurants in lieu of a tip in order to help spread the good news. (Just kidding about that last bit though. I would be willing to take them around to a few fundamentalist churches though and slip them into the tract rack when they're not looking. ;)

Labels: eschatology, Peter Rollins, Rapture

posted by Mike Clawson at 11:44 PM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post

Friday, September 18, 2009

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right

I'm likely overgeneralizing here, but why does it seem like whenever I point out what I see as the bad behavior of conservatives (whether theological or political) one of the first responses I get is usually "Well, your side does it too!" I can't recall how many times I've said something here about the close-mindedness of evangelicals for instance (which after all, is my own tribe), only to have someone respond, "Yeah, well, mainline liberals aren't any better." Or the number of times I've posted something about the dirty politics of the Republicans on Facebook, only to have someone reply, "Well, the Democrats do the same thing."

There are a number of things that bother me about this response:

1) It doesn't actually deal with the issue at hand. It's an evasion tactic that shifts the focus of debate from whether or not said behavior is actually acceptable, to "who started it". As such, it seems like basically a way of avoiding responsibility for one's own actions. So what if the other side does it? Does that thereby excuse your side from doing it too? Do two wrongs make a right? It's especially ironic when conservatives do this. I mean, aren't they supposed to be all about "personal responsibility", not just passing the buck?

2) The "your side does it too" response falsely assumes that I am actually on the "other side". This is not a safe assumption, whether theologically or politically. For instance, while I may be "post-evangelical", evangelicalism is still my heritage and the tribe I most easily identify with, so when I point the finger at the short-comings of evangelicals, it's not pointed at "them" so much as "us". And to be sure, I'm definitely not standing on the side of the mainline "liberals" either. Just because I've moved somewhat beyond evangelicalism doesn't mean I've therefore become a mainliner. That has become abundantly clear to me the more time I spend at my mainline Presbyterian seminary. I respect, love, and am intrigued by my mainline brothers and sisters here, but in many ways I still feel like an outsider looking in. So when folks tell me that "the mainliners do it too", my first thought is "Great, so what? I'm not a mainliner so what does that have to do with me?"

Likewise with politics, just because I no longer identify with the Republicans (though at one point in my life I was, literally, a card-carrying member) doesn't mean I therefore am a Democrat. I'm just as happy to criticize their antics as well (as I did, for instance, just the other day when I posted a Facebook complaint about how the Dems need to just let this Joe Wilson thing just drop.) Thus, when folks respond "The Dems do it too!" again my response is "Yeah? So what? They suck too. But shouldn't you be worried about your own side?"

Of course, I'm sure some might wonder why, if I don't consider myself either conservative or liberal in either of these spheres, why my critiques are usually directed primarily at the conservative side (which, I'll freely admit, they typically are). The answer is because, as I said above, the conservative side of things is where I come from and what I know. I can critique evangelicals because in some ways I still am one. And I can criticize Republicans because not too long ago I was one. However, not having ever been a mainliner, nor a devoted Democrat, I have a harder time pointing out their faults simply because I'm not as familiar with them. Indeed, it feels somewhat unfair and inappropriate for me to criticize them without fully understanding them. It's the whole "nobody better criticize my momma except me" thing. When you're part of (or have been part of) the family, you have a right to point out its faults. But when you're an outsider (and always have been), one has an obligation to understand before critiquing. (Which is one of the reasons I'm here at a mainline Seminary - in order to understand what makes mainliners tick so that I can better understand the critiques of my mainline Emergent friends.)

Anyhow, I'm sure I'll get flamed for this post, though of course it would be extremely ironic if the response to it was "well, liberals use this same evasion tactic too!" So let me be the first to say it, yes of course they do it too, and more than that, I'm sure I've done it too at times - I'm certainly not perfect. So why don't we all commit to dealing with the actual issues from now on, and not try to avoid seeing them in our own side (whichever side that is) by only ever pointing them out in the other. Let's all agree that "well, your side does it too", is never a valid counter-argument, especially when you haven't yet dealt with the fact that your own side is also doing it.

Labels: politics, theology

posted by Mike Clawson at 5:27 PM | Permalink | 16 comments

Links to this post

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Listening

I'm in a class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer this semester at Seminary. I've encountered Bonhoeffer before in undergrad, and to be honest, I'm having some of the same issues with him this time around as I remember having then. I'm currently reading Life Together, and to be honest, in some places his thinking is just too dichotomistic, too either/or, too church vs. world for my taste. (Though our lecture in class today explained that a lot of this probably has to do with the fact that he's a Lutheran, which, according to H. Richard Niebuhr anyway, tends to think in these paradoxical dichotomous terms quite often.)

On the other hand, at many points he also nails things right on, and I appreciate some of his psychological insight into community dynamics. Today the thing that struck me the most was his advice about listening as one of the chief tasks of ministry. He writes:

Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of live for the brethren is learning to listen to them.... Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

How true this is! I know it's one of the biggest things I struggled with as a pastor, and continue to struggle with to be honest. There are so many times when I just want to dominate a conversation, and times when I have to consciously, deliberately keep my mouth shut or force myself to ask the other person a question so as not to let myself do that. And (having pointed the finger first at myself, I feel slightly better pointing it at others as well), I can't tell you how many other pastor's I've known that just love to hear themselves talk and will barely let you get a word in edgewise. There was the time in Yorkville, for instance, when we were just starting off on the church plant and I was trying to meet with all the local pastors. One of them took me out to lunch, but didn't ask me a single question about our plant the whole time. He spent the entire time telling me all about their church and how he had single-handedly grown it from 50 people to 800 people in the past five years. I literally don't think I said more than two or three sentences the entire conversation.

And it's not just that one guy (who admittedly, probably had some ego issues). Even pastors that I've known well and highly respect were not always very good listeners and almost never asked questions. They were very passionate about their things, and very eager to share all about them with me, but never got around to asking about my passions. And what concerns me is that I see this same tendency in a few of my classmates at Seminary too. There are a great group of people here, and I love all of them, but there are more than a few who can be so excited and passionate about what they're into, that they rarely let others into the conversation, and they almost never ask questions of others. This is a problem for folks who are going ministry and wanting to lead churches. If they can't learn to listen now, how will they be able to do it as pastors?

Anyhow, anyone who knows me knows how often all this is true of me as well, so I don't say this in judgment, but just as a caution to anyone who wants to go into ministry and as a reminder to myself - learn to ask questions and learn to listen.

Labels: Bonhoeffer

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:21 AM | Permalink | 5 comments

Links to this post

Friday, September 11, 2009

New Structure and Passion for Emergent Village

Big changes have been afoot at Emergent Village over the past few months, and Julie and I have both been an active part of them (especially Julie). This letter was sent out a few days ago (along with this video) to the friends of Emergent Village, detailing the new structure of Emergent Village, as well as its renewed vision and hope for the future.

Greetings!

You may remember back in April that a number of people invested in Emergent Village gathered in Washington, D.C., to discuss the future of this conversation. In May that group of 24 shared our stories from the weekend and expressed our hopes for what is to come. With the previous EV leadership ready to step down, this was a prime opportunity to take stock of where Emergent Village has been over the past decade. Over the past few months those of us who gathered in D.C. have been discerning carefully and thoroughly where God is calling us together. Though we are by no means finished dreaming for the future of the Village, here’s our summary of the process thus far.

In our recent conversations we distinguished four recurring emphases to guide the way we structure the Village: collaboration, distribution, transparency and localization. We want to hear what you are doing, connect you with others, open up channels of communication between diverse voices, and highlight the powerful and creative places of emergence happening in our backyards. And guess what? All of them involve YOU.

Emergent Village has always centered on relationships that find their common ground in seeking new, creative and sustainable ways of following Jesus, and that create glimpses of the present and coming Kingdom. As we move ahead, we want to continue to create intentional means of connecting people. We’ve been describing this intentionally relational space as the Village Green. The Village Green will take on many forms: gatherings and events, local cohort meetings and conversations, book groups, web resource sharing, news updates and more. In all instances, the Village Green is a generative environment where missional friendships are nourished.

For the Village Green to flourish, it needs YOU to ignite that generative energy at the local and grassroots level. The Village Green is open for planting seeds, throwing parties, living justly, discussing new ideas, connecting with new people, creating music and art and poetry, and yes, even sitting around discussing theology. As a way of encouraging, organizing and advancing these efforts, we’ve created eight working groups around the things we are most passionate about. A number of Villagers have already found their way to these groups and have started conversations about what the future of the Village Green looks like from there. And now it’s your turn to do the same. This is YOUR Village. We invite you to jump in on one or more of these groups by contacting the team point person(s) and contributing to the planning, the dreaming and the doing. If you think we’ve missed something or just feel like adding something new, let us know by contacting any of the people listed below.

Here are the working groups:

Arts: The Village has always been a place of creativity, and we want to continue in that direction by supporting, networking and highlighting artists of all kinds in the Village. If you would like to help foster arts on the Green, contact Troy Bronsink (troybronsink@mac.com) or Makeesha Fisher (makeesha@gmail.com).

Cohorts: In many ways, cohorts are the heart of the Village. This is a great on-ramp for people to get involved in the conversation, make new friends and discuss new ideas. If you want to help organize and resource our network of cohorts, contact Sarah Notton (sarahnotton@gmail.com) or Mike Clawson (mike.clawson@gmail.com).

Communications: Our relationships will only be as strong as our communication. So, a team of folks have been invited to steward our venues of communication to make sure that they are open, consistent, and empowering others. There will plenty of ways to help us spread the word around the Village and beyond. Already you’ll notice the fresh look and feel of the Emergent/C. If your gifts might serve this team, contact Tim Snyder (tksnyder@gmail.com)

Events: As a generative friendship, Emergent Village hopes to promote face-to-face interaction around compelling and creative ideas through a number of events. It has been part of our practice in the past to encourage Villagers to attend at least one event per year to sustain and grow relationships. If you want to help dream and implement future events, contact Randy Buist (randybuist@comcast.net) or Anthony Smith (postmodernegro@gmail.com).

Justice: One of the clear themes that came out of our time together in April was our common desire to see justice embodied in our communal life together and fostered in our individual lives, and to bring more stories of justice to the table. If you want to help foster our emphasis on justice, contact Kelly Bean (bean.kelly@gmail.com) or Wendy Johnson (Wendy.J@episcopalmn.org).

Resources: The Village Green is a great place to share ideas, and a wonderful place of conversation for Jesus Way followers to find encouragement and support. Through articles, books, podcasts, and lots of other mediums, we are all invited to share our collective wisdom for the greater good of the Kingdom. Contact Mike Stavlund (mikestavlund@gmail.com) or Brittian Bullock (brittianbullock@gmail.com) to help resource the Green.

Village Council: To help coordinate the efforts between these eight areas and to encourage the conversation even further into this next season of Emergent, the group from D.C. selected six people to serve on the new Village Council. The Village Council also makes up the Board of Directors for EV’s non-profit purposes and will handle some of the organizational necessities of EV. VC members will serve no more than two consecutive years. This year, the Village Council members are: Melvin Bray (melvinbray@gmail.com), Troy Bronsink (troybronsink@mac.com), Julie Clawson (julieclawson@gmail.com), Dwight Friesen (quest@scn.org), Eliacin Rosario-Cruz (eliacin@gmail.com) and Danielle Shroyer (danielle@journeydallas.com). How we choose future Village Councils is still yet to be determined, but we look forward to inlcuding more of you in this process down the road.

Web: The EV website and other digital media venues provide a virtual space for the Village Green in between our face to face encounters. The web also provides access to resources and offers a place of connection for newcomers. If you have ideas about supporting our virtual Village, contact Jon Irvine (jonirvine.com@gmail.com) or Michael Toy (the.michael.toy@gmail.com).

Thanks to ten years of dedication, passion, and vision, the soil on the Village Green is rich. We’ll do all we can to create and maintain this generative space because we are convinced that we’re far better together than we are apart. After all, that’s the definition of emergence—the collective becomes more than simply the sum of its parts. And isn’t that what this Kingdom is all about? So, fellow Villagers, we have only one question for you: What will YOU do on the Village Green?

Sincerely,
Danielle Shroyer, Melvin Bray, Troy Bronsink, Julie Clawson, Dwight Friesen, and Eliacin Rosario-Cruz

Labels: Emergent Village, emerging church

posted by Mike Clawson at 9:32 AM | Permalink | 0 comments

Links to this post