Emergent Village and Me

This is so strange, really. I feel like I'm playing some kind of catch up game. The emergent church movement has been around for 10 years apparently ... it's been around so long that they are already having small group sessions and workshops to figure out what to do next ... growing pains even! It's like coming into the latest style after everyone else is starting to wear something else.

And here I am, so terribly new to the process, trying to read all that I can read and understand what is happening "out there." I'm not a theologian. I'm not in or connected to a university. I'm not an x, y or z generation. And it's taking awhile to figure out where everyone else (EV) has been so then I can understand why they are concerned about the now or the future.

I've even read where some younger folks in the emergent movement believe it has passed its prime. That seems amazing to me. I mean, most of the books have just come out in the last 4-5 years. Like everything else, it's all moving very fast.

The only avenue for "emergent conversation" for me is virtual. I'm trying to feel my way into a connection. It's all so interesting. But it's not so easy to feel a part of it. No matter what folks say about it, there is a language and a now, even a history, that must be known to participate.

Well, I'll just keep pressing on ... pressing in. If you're interested... here's a place to start: Emergent Village.

Studying All Things Emergent

Well, I've started doing what I love to do: reading everything I can get my hands on that will catch me up to what is happening in this "Emergent" & "Emerging" "postmodern" Christian movement. I am so enjoying this process. Of course, I'm always so envious as I roam the web finding blogs and websites and lists of places where Emergent worship is already happening: cities pretty much but not all. And so, there's hope for this little Maryland town too. :-)

So, here's what I've read or I'm reading (also can see my list of want to reads on Facebook's Virtual Bookshelf app):

• The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle (perfect introduction to the movement along with overview of the great cataclysms in our church past)
• The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier by Tony Jones (Emergent Village head honcho - a loose cohort of emergent communities around the country ... and a few out of the country)
• Reading now ... an older title of Tickle's called Prayer is a Place. I love her writing style/voice. She speaks directly to me.
  
• Waiting in the wings: It: How Church Leaders Can Get It and Keep It by Greg Groeschel. I'm not sure where he fits into all this yet. I'm pretty sure he's not "emergent" but I think he's worth reading.
  
• And then I think I'm ready to go back to McLaren... whose books I bought 2 years ago, but I wasn't ready ... or didn't have the framework I have now to read them. So, I have Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope; and A Generous Orthodoxy
• Also, on my bookshelf, two titles by Erwin Raphael McManus: The Barbarian Way and The Unstoppable Force... but I'm not sure how he fits into this framework yet either.
  

And then I wonder about other voices out there ... Dan Allender at Mars Hill Graduate School (for it was Allender who introduced me to "Story" some five years ago) and The Shack guys who intrigued me, not so much by the book itself but the process by which the book evolved and how their questions about "what is church?" have become their own type of phenomenon. Do they all interweave somewhere out in the ether? I really don't know.

Since I'm not able to have a conversation with any of these folks in person, I'll be satisfied for now with the books and the Word and my time with the Lord Himself. And maybe after I get the lay of the land, I'll enter some virtual conversations. We'll see.

I just know I want something more from my worship experience. I want to be free in my "church community." I want to be myself ... who reads all kinds of books and watches all kinds of movies and sometimes even blows it in a big way language-wise. I want to ask hard questions of myself and others. I only want one litmus test for my faith: knowing Jesus and Him crucified & resurrected for me. I want a place ... a fellowship... a desire for a true koinonia has been birthed in me through my study of Philippians.... where we can follow the "way of Jesus" together in love and humility and trust.

Emerging Worship Returns

Well, I'm putting my foot back out there. Not sure where this will head but I mentioned to Randy that I think we should transform our Sunday night service into an Emerging Worship service... a dream I had some two years ago but had to let go... is it time now?

In the meantime, just discovered there's a "EM" movement in the Methodist Church (go figure) and one in the Presbyterian denomination (ok... I've been away for awhile!). So, maybe it's actually passe and I need to keep looking. :-)

Actually, I feel drawn to renew my interest ... starting here. I know this one thing for sure--worship in its current design is no longer engaging my soul or my heart. It is time for meaningful change before I just drop out.