In the 24-7 prayer guide of operation world (see Andrews entry below) they write that 50 % of the active Christians in my country Germany are 50 years or older. In the next 30 years most of them will have moved to the other side of the line....leaving an even smaller number of Christians - unless we learn to make church relevant for people living NOW....

steve might be worth you checking the pack 'born among us' produced by uspg - has some images of the incarnation from down under as well as elsewhere. and there are a few carols/worship items very definitely from the southern hemisphere. it's available from USPG.

happy christmas all you bloggers....!

if you are in the mood for a couple of seasonal reflections have a look at vaux greyspace. in particular i like the magnificat, divine womb and the reflection on the incarnation.

Summer Jesus downunder (warning: long rant)
The Word became human being and … lived among us. Which means that Jesus grew up a Jew, telling Jewish jokes with Jewish accents, playing Jewish sports and Jewish music and hearing Jewish stories of origins. The word became human and … lived among us Jews.

However, 2000 years later, Jesus Jewishness seems to have been lost. I remember vividly a Chinese man in Canton, China telling me that Jesus was a Westerner. And so, over time, this Jewish baby has become wrapped, not in Jewish swandling cloth, but in holly and mistletoe, in snow and Santa. The word became human and .. lived among a Northern hemisphere.

Please hear me, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s what the Word is meant to do. It’s meant to dwell in the culture around it. John Drane talks about the Word being a seed, planted, that grows in another culture. Jesus needs to take root in Jewish soil, in American or English soil.

The danger is not that Jesus grows in Northern Hemisphere soil, but that Jesus is given to the world as the Northern Hemisphereness Word. In reality the Christmas message asks for the Word to dwell among us, for the seed planted in the land of the long white cloud, for God to dwell among Kiwis.

Take for instance the Church year. The church year includes 4 weeks of Advent, leading up to Christmas. Now, in the Northern Hemisphere, this all gets tied up with the longest night. The earth is dark and frozen. The body cries out for sun and for warmth. Then just after the longest night, when the cry of light is loudest, comes the birth of Jesus. Hope dawns. Days start to lengthen. Summer will come. And so the earth’s rythms are mixed with the birth of Jesus.

If Jesus is a Northern Hemisphere Jesus, wrapped in Northern Hemisphere symbols and rythms, then it will be easy to leave Jesus behind as we head for the beach and the barby.

Downunder we celebrate Advent and Christmas in summer. Our light is long. The days are warm and humid. We’re all closing down for our summer holidays. These rythym’s of earth need to get mixed up with the birth of Jesus. And so the birth of Jesus is about us in the South entering our annual Sabbath rest. It’s about God mixed with play, for on the 7th day God rested. It’s about the full warmth and vigour of creation. This Jesus who comes to us as God ablaze with energy and with power to renew the cosmos. This Word became human being and … needs to live among us [Kiwis].

May the Word, who became human being, truly live among us this Southern Hemisphere Christmas.

in-out-together

Spencer Burke has posted a great article on the Church at theOOZE.com:
The present incarnation of Christ is the church. We are not alone in our struggles, nor are we the only ones walking the "labyrinth." Whether we are part of a house church or a mega church, we are ultimately part of THE church. Budgets, formulas, programs—they're incidental. If the focus of the emerging church is just three things: the inward journey, the outward journey and journeying together, we have a common, unifying bond. [read more]

24-7 Prayer : Operation World

24-7 Prayer : Operation World is completed and it looks great!

Plastic: Hot Breath Down Your Neck? Maybe It's Jesus

Matthew Glock in France says that Jesus is all over the Plastic site "Scratching your head in bewilderment at the plethora of Jesus stories currently running here on Plastic?" asks ignatiusreilly." Sick of debating what He would do (for a Klondike bar, on a first date, etc.)? Drink? Drive? Starting to feel like Jesus is everywhere? Well, He is"

Generous Giving Marketplace

Generous Giving Marketplace will help you in giving your money to the right organization this Christmas.

ACCIDENTAL COMMUNITY: Jason Evans is on track with his ruminations about living in close-enough proximity to your church members that you can spend a quantity of time with them, not just quality time.

new-churches.com

new-churches.com site is getting closer to completion. Looks great Karsten!

Synergy
The anglican minister phoned yesterday. The community I'm part of, Graceway have been exploring moving from a rented hall to their church as a place to develop our arts and spirituality dreams. If you're a regular kingdom space blog reader, you'll also know that I've been having coffee with Jackie Sewell, who wants to start an arts and spirituality centre (Amaze) for teenagers. We've been exploring the mutually benefical aromas.

The anglicans rang to suggest to us a joint lease - Jackie in the manse, Graceway in the church and are having an emergency meeting before Christmas to approve this if we want, possibly taking possession late January.

So a few months of vague dreamings over coffee could suddenly be a reality. Graceway leadership are meeting on Friday to talk. Graceway community are talking by email, having checked out the building a few weeks ago. It's all happening very quickly. Please pray that decisions made are cool for all and that all feel involved as much as they want to be.

Christianity Today Magazine - Weblog: Cleveland Priest Murdered

Cleveland Priest Murdered Cleveland police announced this morning that they had arrested a suspect for the murder of William Gulas, pastor of St. Stanislaus Church.

Hello from Berlin

Kerstin Hack

Took me a while to finally sign in! But wanted to say hi. Will write more about what´s happening in the kingdom in Germany (well, not the political kingdom - news on this one are not too good these days), but Gods kingdom....at least the stuff I haven´t already written about in my other blog: Berlin rocks. Berlin rocks, it really does!

mark riddle: I haven't found a blogger out there quite like the Ridman, the Ridmeister, making copies. check out his blog and tell me what that "what do you call it" is. He's mostly humor and commentary, and every now and then his commentary really challenges me.

Itsmiracles.asp

Religious gathering grows to 150,000 participants.That's big!

Younger Evangelicals

Hey folks - I'm baaaaccckkk! OK, enough of that. I've been, like several it seems, reading The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber. I tried to start reading it at the beginning but got bogged down - had to start skipping around. I've skipped to chapter 7 - Ecclesiology. Very interesting stuff. I want to put a couple of quotes here for your benefit. I think this, just because of it's basic content, a very significant book. It's actually the first book that's really dealing with what's going on in the emerging church in a holistic way. We've had others that have dealt with Postmodernism, etc. but not with the whole emerging church phenomenon.

quote one: "The Constantinian church became so enmeshed with society that it soon served as the 'caretaker' or 'chaplain' of society. By being enmeshed with society and by offering prayer at its various functions, the church created a kind of 'civil religion' that legitimated the social order. It became the moral teacher for all citizens, calling upon them to live good, moral, and upright lives."

That may have been said before but it's still huge. He menitons too the connection later to the liberal social action agenda as well as the conservative agenda in politics. These tactics are not the answer.

He quotes John Green as saying something very key to the rising ethos of the emerging church: "...we are made to be light in the darkness–calling people to the road less travelled, to a costly discipleship that rejects the materialism, nationalism, militarism, classism, racism, and sexism of the American culture for the cross of Christ."

I'll quote more later - good stuff. I hope a lot of people read this book and their eyes are opened.

seven maga zine

Steve Collins on this month's seven maga zine answers the question, "So how does 'alternative worship' differ from 'postmodern church' or 'Gen X church'?

odd post? I don't think so. This scholarship for film and fiction typs seems appropriate for emerging church folks who are committed to these media (I don't know these folks, just seems interesting).

Bono at Wheaton: my thoughts

CNN.com

Bono interview with Larry King
This is from last Sunday.

KING: If there is a God, he must be angry at a lot of this.

BONO: I think God is very angry at the moment, and I think there is -- I think it's shocking what is going on in the world. And I think it is an extraordinary moment.

Right now, I can tell you this. Our age will be remembered. This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to let people die because they can't get the drugs that you and I take for granted. That means -- you have to ask very hard questions of ourselves if we're doing that.

allelon
Okay, this is my first post. Andrew said to only post stuff that would apply to a broad spectrum so this is the first worthy thing I've come across... Todd Hunter and some others have started an orginization called, Allelon. Here's a definition from the site:

...a relationally-based, missionary movement dedicated to reaching contemporary culture, establishing new communities of faith devoted to one another, and creating new delivery systems for equipping, and resourcing existing churches...

They are having their first gathering of associated leaders in January. I'm sure this group will bring about some amazing things in the Kingdom. I won't be there, but I'm sure some of you will so make sure we get a report.

I WONDER if there will be any bloggers or house church / emerging culture folks at the World Mission Briefings in Oxford in May. Or nearby?

To follow up Jonny's post about Labyrinth. We ordered the Group Publishing version of it and will be using it across Saskatchewan and Western Canada this lenten season. It will be the first time that we know it being in Western Canada and we are really looking forward to the response.

encouraging news today.... last year one of the best weeks of the labyrinth tour was at feltham young offenders institute (a prison for young offenders). the lads there seemed to get loads out of it. the chaplain was delighted. anyway to cut a long story short, the prison raised some funds and arranged that YFC would make them a labyrinth cloth with all the necessary bits (TVs, bucket, stones etc...) so that they can run it regularly themselves in the prison. the kit was delivered yesterday. good eh?!

Lord Holy Spirit
You blow like the wind in a thousand paddocks
Inside and outside the fences
You blow where you wish to blow
JK Baxter

I met for lunch with Paul yesterday. It’s a growing relationship that started in blogosphere. One of the recurring threads of our conversation was how our lives are enriched by the blog world. It’s part of the Spirit’s good gift to us. We are enriched by each other and by a new range of conversations we are part of and we listen to.

To rephrase Baxter
Lord Holy Spirit
You blow like the wind in a thousand blogs
Inside and outside our virtual world

Thanks be to God, and to each of you.

emergent soCal?

Had a nice talk today with a woman named Shannon who is interested in things that Emergent Village is up to. We are talking about gathering folks in the Southern California to talk about emerging culture, beyond fundamentalism types of things.

refill in denmark

had a wonderful time at refill in denmark this weekend. great to meet with 400 crazy danish youth leaders and see what they are up to! there were a few things that were particularly good. one was that on the saturday morning they had invited a business school (secular) called the kaos pilots (a school training people in creative and innovative approaches to business) to work with them to think about how the church needs to change to connect with youth in denmark. about 30 people came from the business school and worked in small groups. the ideas arising from this are being written up for everyone. then in the evening they had a collection to set up a fund so that people could apply for money to kickstart their new ideas! i thought this was some really out of the box thinking on the part of the planning group. the labyrinth was also set up and running. there was a club approach to worship being tried in the evening by some people looking to start a church in the techno scene in copenhagen. i was doing some training on alternative/creative approaches to worship that seemed to go down well. there are some guys in denmark who have realy pioneeered for youth miistry there - they are doing research in social trends amongst youth, running a youth ministry course and at the weekend unveiled the 'reflektorium' which is the first danish youth ministry journal. this is going to come out twice a year. so lots to be encouraged about. i felt very hopeful.....

one curious thing happened to me that is probably worth recounting. i had a train tciket from odense to copenhagen to return to the airport and it was a resreved numbered seat. it turned out that a danish pastor, dan was on the same train as me. he also had a resrved seat number. when we looked to see where each other were sitting it turned out that we were next to each other. that was a really nice moment of feeling god was with me even in the small detail....

Spencer Burke is a great guy....
I had a great time having lunch with Spencer Burke today. Most of you know that Spencer and Dave Trotter co-founded the ooze. They met with Next-Wave's founding editor, Rogier Bos, in 1999 when we were all beginning our adventures in cyberspace....As Next-Wave and the ooze begin their 5th year, Spencer has been busy doing some great stuff, Soularize, Soularize worship CDs. the ooze community with nearly 10,000 registered users, and about 75,000 visitors a month, Seed Stories, Etrek and much more to come....When I got the idea to start Next-Wave I was discouraged, thinking that not much was being done to foster missional churches to reach the emerging culture...It didn't take long to figure out that there was nothing to be discouraged about, God was busy raising up leaders and building his church....It's been fun to see Him at work and it will be fun to watch what He does in the years ahead....

Amaze
I met with Jackie Sewell yesterday. After many years working with Anglican Youth ministry, she’s pursuing a new dream.

She wants to start Amaze, an arts and spirituality space for teenagers. It will have safe prayer space, workshops to enhance creativity and spirituality and offer referral services as need me. A focused prayer space for teenagers.

We dreamed together and explored how our dreams overlap in terms of art and spirituality and monastic movements, and how they differ in terms of her focus on youth, while Graceway started out as 20-30’s and as people grow and join us, as proved to nourish people across the spectrum.

Pray for Jackie. Its a cool dream and a lot needs to happen for her. I offered to build her a simple website. When that happens, you’ll be able to drop in and say Hi and encourage her.

American missionary shot and killed in Lebanon

American missionary shot and killed in Lebanon

Bonnie Weatherall, 31, was shot and killed this morning as she opened a Christian prenatal health clinic in Sidon, Lebanon. The story here is from ABC News. Here is the Christian and Missionary Alliance site report.

Tall Skinny Kiwi

Tall Skinny Kiwi is the self appointed blog site for the NATO Summit in Prague.
Pray for Prague, that through the decisions made here this week, the King of all the earth will be able to do right, to establish peace, to enable equity, to allow justice, to soften hearts towards what is pure, to turn opinions towards the true, to silence lies, to stop the flow of fear, to transform pride into humility and a nation by nation calling of God's favour.

Living in the Margins

I find the following subject a fascinating dimension of thinking and reflecting on Church and mission in a 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand context…what are Christian authentic communities? Where do they live out their communal existence? How do they live that ‘existence’ out in terms of the missional challenge of the “gospel”? And, how do they contextualise and communicate that gospel? New Zealand is a mission field with very real challenges for Jesus-followers. Both challenging and exciting!

"Ah, who will ever count the centuries examined in the margins of our books?”
This is a quote from the Jewish poet/writer, Edmond Jabes, and it forms the central inspiration of my book, “Living in the Margins” (appears to be out of print).

“…To live in the margins of tradition is to live in a vital space of interpretive activity that keeps the "book" living, growing, expanding with new commentary and enlivening questions. Many small Christian communities occupy this marginal space, living on the edge of tradition -- in the margins -- attending both to the claims of the tradition to which they belong and to the claims of new, unexpected situations. In a sense, marginal Christian communities are both "inside" the book and "outside" the book, with the margins of interpretation mediating between these two spaces…”

Terry A. Veling (Aussies and Kiwi’s will find an essay distillation of the above book in his essay – “Margin Writing and Marginal Communities: Between Belonging and Non-Belonging” – Published in Pacifica 9 / February 1996.)

Not an easy read, but who knows who reads this, and what they like reading, so, for an on-line example of his writing see: "Levinas and the Other Side of Theology." He has some good things to say.

(In academic circles, Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) is recognised as one of the most important philosophers and religious thinkers of this century. His work has significantly influenced many "postmodern" thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, Luce Irigaray, Paul Ricoeur. He has also influenced Jewish and Christian leaders and educators, including Pope John Paul II. However, his
thinking is not generally well known to a broader audience.)

refill in denmark

am off to join the danes reflecting on church, youth ministry, mission and all that this weekend - see refill for more info (though you'll have to speak danish). about 400 are expected so should be good fun! the title is 'out of road'....

Thanks to those who prayed

We kicked off Xpressions last night. It was a great night of creativity and community through storytelling. Great to have some fellow theo-blogians turn up - rachel and paul although it should be noted that neither told a yarn.

I've had a first draft go at a theology of storytelling on my blogspot and the possibilities of storytelling as a communal and mission tool amongst the emerging culture. I'd appreciate any feedback. The other thing I still have to get my head around is the link between local narrative and God's big narrative, but there's always tomorrow. Thanks for all the prayers. Continue to pray for the non-christians who turned up.

"...If we do as our Fathers did
we do not do as our Fathers did...." (Johann Hinrich Wichern).

Japanese philosopher Kirtaro Nishida said that religion is a raft that sails on the endless sea. If so, then we must be vigilant that we don't allow our preoccupation with the business on the raft to displace God's business. I like Meister Eckhart's prayer. "I pray God to rid me of god," which is a prayer to the ocean of God to rid us of the gods of the raft.

Bit of a stink
When the church becomes an end to itself, it acts pious and begins to turn sour. Anyone with a sensitive nose will smell that and find it dreadful.
- Karl Barth

hear a great story today on npr about how the democrats lost texas and in turn the whole thing, yet the republicans better take heed, to much pandering to one group will destroy your connection with the other. link to story Commentator Ruben Navarrette is a Texan who says his state's African-American and Hispanic politicians should pay less attention to wooing white voters, and more attention to demographics that predict a Hispanic majority in coming years.

Kingdom Professionals - An Old Idea In New Wineskins by Gary Ginter

Gary Ginter chairs a cool organization called Intent that seeks to network professionals who are already working or who desire to work throughout the world in their field of expertise as conduits for Kingdom blessing.

THE COMING MERGER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: An article in Wired magazine titled The New Convergence describes how scientists - the atheist, agnostic, coldly-rational types - are increasingly examining and/or considering religion in their hypotheses and speculations. Special thanks to blogger Jason Johnson for pointing out that the art for the article is the bomb. To wit:

targeting 13-19 years-olds with a church plant: Marvin Jacobo of Modesto, California, USA has announced plans to plant a new church called Tapestry. It will begin by targeting 13 to 19 year olds, with the specific thought that these young people will then bring their families and friends. This strategy should prove effective in the Hispanic/Latino communities in the United States. I'm excited for Marvin and team, and I look forward to visiting. Marvin is a pioneer in the area of breaking your high school group down into small groups - he was one of the first to do so years ago (there is a term for that, but I don't remember it).

jonnybaker and jordon

Blogging news. Talked to Jonny Baker in England for a long time today and read that Jordon Cooper resigned from his pastorate - we are trying to talk him into coming to Prague but dont have any money to pay him. Maybe he and his family will come anyway.

Newsday.com - Bishops Insist Abuse Cleanup on Track

Tomorrow - Bishops vote The bishops are expected to vote on the revised policy Wednesday near the end of a four-day meeting. They seem likely to approve the plan, which they hope will help re-establish their badly damaged credibility among the Catholic faithful at the end of a

Storytelling



Connecting our stories with God's story is an essential postmodern way of being. We ran a storytelling workshop here in Aotearoa New Zealand in September. 3 churches, linking together. Thursday we go public. We've hired a bar, sent out the invites. We're telling stories, of life, of love, of God, casting them to the wind.

Pray for us.

8 mile and eminem

the music of eminem has caputerd more than the imagination of out culture. i listen to it and it grabs most of me. kids love it and their parents hate it won't let them listen etc and once again we push them away. maybe its the pain, the honesty, the beat, but his music hooks me. its narrative, its powerful and its teaching us about who we really are, hate filled and fearful. is it that a mild and invisible kid has made it so big rapping about his pain filled life, it makes me wonder if he were black would we be so concerned, it might be expected of a kid from the inner city. not trying to incite anything just a question, does it scare us so much becuz he was so every kid growing up and any of our kids or even us for that matter could be where he is. it is a great opportunity to talk to kids about it, i have already had several conversations about it with my two oldest boys 17 & 14, they love the music yet are concerned what it tells their peers to be and act out. just some thoughts

something to talk about

Teen boys in my neighborhood were overly excited about the new Eminem movie, 8 Mile, just released. The movie has exploded. I didn't want them to see it, but then realized that they were going to see it and all of their friends were going to see it - it's the event of the month. So I spent some good time the next day asking them about the movie, deconstructing it with them. But clearly this guy has captured the collective imagination of a nation of restless youth: "8 Mile" opened at $50 million+ this weekend. I'm praying for opportunities to reflect on biblical values and perspective and to share the Gospel with the many who identify Em's story.




Photo at right is of Eminem in middle school




Update: It was a bunch of little Mexican guys who were really excited about the movie. I gotta go figure that one out. Especially as the film distributors estimate that 20% of the audience was Latino.

Unity
At the time of Jesus unity prayer in John 17, not one of his disciples had a NT bound between two pieces of leather…it would be years later when Peter, Paul and John, Mark, etc would write their epistles and gospel stories. There was no NT. Jesus wasn’t praying that all believers would unify around a position but it was a prayer and call to unify around a Person.

The Gospel is clearly delineated for us in 1 Cor 15:1-4. When Paul said, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- “ Paul was directing his thoughts at the Jewish legalist who were aggressively teaching and binding the old rituals and laws of a by gone era. This was a different gospel; it was a Jesus PLUS religion (Jesus + circumcision = salvation). Paul condemns them for such! (Gal 1:6)

Our denominational party lines (fences) have spawned more denominations than they have united. There’s an interesting passage in 1 Cor 1:10-12 where Paul encourages us “to speak the same thing” as opposed to shouting our different party slogans from across the fence. The phrase “speak the same thing” is a political term describing “unity of allegiance.” Our allegiance is not to a thought or a doctrine. These are the materials that build fences. Our allegiance should be to the Person of Jesus Christ. He’s the rally pole. He’s the One unity is built upon. It’s only right that Xians “speak the same” slogans of allegiance to Jesus alone. Jesus was crucified for all believers. He’s not divided. He is the common bond and He alone deserves our undivided allegiance. I thank God I am not saved by my logic or my hermeneutic, I am saved by Jesus’ perfect living and dying.

Have you ever noticed that when someone attempts to dismantle any section of the fence, he is either vilified or venerated?

REsearch

Research on USA church
" . . . Americans are less likely to attend religious services than 10 years ago but that the remaining faithful are turning to conservative Protestant, Catholic and Mormon churches.
Nationwide, Catholics remain the largest religious group in the country, with more than 62 million "ahderents" -- a category devised to reconcile differences in the way denominations count members.
The Southern Baptist Convention is second with 19.8 million adherents, followed by the United Methodist Church, with 10.3 million; an estimated 6.1 million Jews, observant and non-observant; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 5.1 million; Mormons, 4.2 million; the Presbyterian Church (USA), 3.1 million; and the Assemblies of God, 2.5 million."

thanks for the invire and hi

andrew and all thanks for the invite to the blog, i look forward to participating with you all. lately i have found it hard to find to post let alone read other people's blogs. this last week though i found some time and was saddened by the general level of stress and down i felt around the web. lots of people struggling with deep issue this invite was a bright spot. i continue to enjoy how the internet connects and enlivens our conversations and relationships. anyway i publish a internet rag called seven and blog at life with kids and god i have eight kids soon to be twelve now, we are adopting four kids from ethiopia and that has us pretty wrapped its been a long and eventful process this time. i am also interviewing for a student ministry position in cincinnati, ohio my hometown, (we are the place with the worst team in the nfl and a pension for riots of the racial variety). the church i am interviewing with is very modern traditional worship but open to a broad theological discussion and may be ripe for a little postmodern missionary work. i will know by the end of the week about it. so thanks again and i will actually try to read and post with regularity.

blessings
john

Welcome to the relaunching weekend of A Kingdom Space. These are the changes for this weekend (so far):

1. Christmas colours to celebrate the season. Thanks to Jim for his great painting

2. New bloggers. You will read their entries and will see links to their blogs in the right column next week.

2. I dumped the archives and opened up the entire history of the site, all the way back to the first blog entry in April. You can now read the whole conversation and watch it develop. Where we're going, we dont need . . archives!

3. I added a Google search engine.

4. I added a comments section, on the advice of Jonny B who got it from Paul Prodigal Fromont.

- Can someone please help me out. Go to comments and donate $14 to entation.co.uk - Pay Pal will not let me pay at the moment because they do not recognize Czech Republic - which means all my Pay Pal money (and I do have some) is locked up in their system and making them all rich off the interest - all because I happen to be in Prague and not Portland or Preoria. If one of you does this, all our readers will not be hit up for a donation - and I do want to keep the site commercial free. Thanks.

As you read through the site, please feel welcome to add comments and links.This way we can extend the conversation out into other countries, contexts, narratives, etc. Lets build out this site laterally as well as chronologically, or synchronically as well as diachronically (to apply Saussurean linguistitic theory) . . .or . . . in other words . . .
AM I MAKING ANY SENSE?
OK . . how 'bout . . . . just go ahead and enjoy the site. Yeah!

Scandal Is Stirring Lay Catholics to Push Church for More Power

New York Times - Scandal Is Stirring Lay Catholics to Push Church for More Power "As the nation's Roman Catholic bishops prepare to meet in Washington on Nov. 11 to complete their policy on sexual abuse by priests, they are confronting the most organized and widespread challenge to their power from the laity in the church's modern history."

Some Good books I've read lately


I've read some good books in the last month or so: Steve Sjogren's The Perfectly Imperfect Church, Bill Hybel's Courageous Leadership, and Michael Slaughter's Unlearning Church.

I always like to read Steve Sjogren's stuff. Steve is the launching pastor of Vineyard Community Church. His efforts at "servant evangelism" and his willingness to share his ideas, have given a number of church leaders a simple way to express the love of Christ in their communities. A few years ago, when I was really having a tough time personally I heard Steve speak at a conference. His topic "Six things I learned when I almost died." I can't remember the six things right this second, but I do remember that I was impacted by the idea that we should do the tasks that God has put in front of us. For me, at that time, my ministry tasks were to be the defense attorney for the skating ministry at the Ranch, and Next-Wave web magazine. Steve's book is refreshingly simple and practical, a must read for church planters.



One of the things I read between the lines of Bill Hybels' book is that leading a megachurch and an association of churches can do some damage to a person's psyche and family life. I guess that's why Hybels writes about "courageous" leadership, the kind that comes with a price. For a guy who's mission in life has been "to turn atheists into missionaries", he has survived the journey long enough to have some important things to say on the subject of leadership.



I first heard Michael Slaughter at a seminar on breaking the 800 barrier in church growth about ten years ago. He is an engaging speaker. At this stage of his life and ministry he has set aside the discussion of church growth barriers to address the changes that face church leaders in the light of the postmodern cultural shift. I was challenged to renew some individual spiritual practices. I was challenged to think about what church might be like 10 years down the road.



What's interesting about each of these books is the vantage point of the authors. All "successful" pastors who have done well. All who have wisdom to share about the journey for church leaders. There is a lot to learn from these writers.

thanks for the invitation
This is my first chance to use blogger. I appreciate the invitation to interact.
Blessings,
Charlie Wear

discipleship in a postmodern age

i will be heading to arizona this weekend to speak and teach at the "upstairs leadersip conf" - it should be fun, i get to hangout with some people i got to know over the internet - a face to face, interation on the personal level. i will fill you in on what's happening on this side of the planet -

pax
john o'keefe

teen girls doing video, dance

Florence was born in Ghana, raised in London, and now lives in SunnyCalifornia. Her crew of teen girls has been studying Scripture and performing dance. Last night they did a few numbers at the CCDA conference (an annual U.S. urban ministry event - it's not over yet; Vinay Samuel speaks this morning). Florence hosted a Spoken Life, spoken-word type event inside the CCDA CyberCafe. The photo below is of some of the girls, post-event, checking their email at the CybeCafe. These are some of the same girls who are featured in the "Kings Daughters in Training" video at the Navarro Avenue Film School.

Isn't life better with a Mac?

Kitchens

Hey. Welcome to new bloggers this weekend. Make yourself at home. Like the new graphic on top???
A thought from my blog:
God is using kitchens. "Fellowship Bread" for the ladies in Australia and "Kitchen Table Training" in Russia. More info at Tall Skinny Kiwi

www.joelnews.nl

Did you know that Marc, one of our bloggers, runs a news site called joel news?

a new blog

we are putting the finishing touches on a new blog called "postmodern_theology" and it is connected with the yahoo egroup "postmodern theology." the idea behind the blog is not set in stone and we would like for the community that forms around it to truly define it in detail. the "goal" is for the blog to be a place where people can "author" ideas on theology and ministry dealing with the emerging church. the idea is for it to be open to anyone who wants to get connected. while invites will be sent out based on the egroup, all are welcomed to join and voice opinions - consider it a "breeding ground" for the mind of the emerging church.

pax
john

Christ, Yesu, Messiah, Jesu, Master, Teacher, Son of God, Radical

Just stumbled on a new web site.Scary name but good resources. Radical Christ was launched to serve a community of "alt evangelicals."

Soularize in Minneapolis, Minnesota -- Not my first choice for a great learning party but people from all over North America converged here for TheOOZE's Soularize. I can only compare it Seattle but this for me was far better. Jason Evans, Wendy, Dan Hughes, and myself all have post-Soularize posts on our thoughts.

Howler's Update

Message from Wolfgang Fernandez, one of our bloggers and one of the key people behind this site on Howler's Update
"Friends, it's been over a month since I have come here...it has been a real hard month for me and my family.
I have resigned from my role in Dawn Ministries, the organization that serves the movement that I have promoted for the last 20 years.
I will take a six months sabbatical.
I have left Egypt (the place of refuge) and I'm now in the desert. It will be a tough time but I expect to meet God in a way that I have never known Him before.
I plan to share here my journey towards my land of promise.

What is Church?

Another house party worth talking about at What is Church? "The event was held at the Rickard's house - a cool, 60's style Florida home complete with terrazzo floors. . . Imagine a dim candle-lit room, Enya playing in the background, the light from the visualizations dancing off the walls, minds full of God. Remember, the context for the experience was John 6 - Jesus as the lifeblood and food - a huge feast of him. So we're sitting there and I'm imaging that this is how the disciples felt after the last supper."

House Party

One account of the house party last week in Switzerland that we attended from Derek and Amy's blog.
"House party in Lausanne extravagant! The mansion-the Mercy Ship Y-Wam base- surrounded by vast fields of whispering cow bells...Bryce had filmed the front of the house and was projecting it onto the house at the same angle he filmed it, creating an eerie virtual effect which you walked through and into. Into a house with many bands, VJs and DJs doing their thing in an electrically alive manner, and all the while the Presence of The Almighty hovering. Truly a blast-and we all felt like stars! Seeing Andrew's house in Prague being sampled from, and our lives being mixed as part of the international celebration of being Christ followers transnational, transdenominational, transcendant-in short, it rocked! Isn't it just good to line up in this great and funky army of The Almighty! " A longer report is at Tallskinnykiwi

The Art of Band-Aid Removal

A recent e-pistle to the VC network of churches for your reading pleasure (well, you be the judge of that... I'll just make it available!) The Art of Band-Aid Removal

An impression of the 24-7prayer.com roundtable in Malaga is available at http://marcsmessages.blogspot.com.



Like Zinzendorf and the Moravians, 24-7 is not just about prayer. Rather it’s a missionary and church planting movement that promotes a holistic lifestyle of prayer. It was good to meet people that are involved in subversive ministries like the boiler rooms, Fusion, Sk8, the Jesus Freaks and Clubbers Temple.

Tomorrow I'll be in Malaga on the south coast of Spain for the international leaders meeting of 24-7. Andrew is there already (fighting the 24-7 bulls), as well as Derek and Amy, whose 'prophetic wedding' we celebrated in Prague last June during the Inspiration Bohemia event.

The Americans like it big and up-front: a new movement known as the '30-Second Kneel Down' is sweeping the nation as high school students boldly kneel in prayer for the teachers, students, and administrators of their schools. The vision of this movement is 'to see a generational awakening come to the youth generation around the world, in order for them to reap a last days' harvest.'

Theoblogian Andrew responded to the '15 traits of a postmodern apostle' mentioned earlier. He called it the '15 trials of a postmodern apostle'. The first five are back-stabbing, thin wallet, red-eye, dumb tax and what-about-Bob's.

From VC network in Ohio

Here's an email from our friend Glenn Johnson. Glenn is a pastor in Oxford, OH (about 30 minutes outside Cincy) home of Miami University where our lovely Shaina goes to college. Glenn and his wife Kathy have visited with us on a couple occasions pounding us with thoughtful questions. We also sent a couple to hang out with them for a day.... so, long story shortened, they have to decided to launch house churches. There's lots of potential for a church planting movement in Oxford... this will be one to watch. These guys are sharp. Here's arecent email describing their decision... also he asks for some input (feel free to send them an email with any ideas... I also think it'd be great if some of us pursuing this decentralized,network of simple churches stuff would send them an email an say "Welcome aboard!" If you wanna do that his email is: Planterdudes@aol.com

Here's the email he sent us...



> "Well, we've done it......... the Veritas CoreCommunity came together Sunday
> night and we've decided to launch 2 home churches on October 13th. We also
> decided to cut back to one worship gathering per month and focus on home
> church development.
>
> It was cool to see an eager consensus come about as we ate, prayed and talked
> together. We have been building up to this for months now and it is just
> splendid to see it around the corner.
>
> We want to have some sort of simple yet beautiful commissioning-type,
> sending-out service on the 29th.......something that would convey the
> ecclesiological significance of what we are endeavoring to do. I was
> wondering, being the green neophytes we are, what ideas could you shoot our
> way as to include in such a service? Any ideas on this and on what we should
> look out for as we begin our home churches would rock. It is obvious in many
> ways to us that God has brought you guys into our lives.......thanks for
> being available.
>
> Glenn"

SYATP History

SEE YOU AT THE POLE This week, on Sep 18, over 3 million youth around the world will pray for their nation. See You At The Pole started in Texas in 1990 with just a few young people and has been growing ever since. It is now in 20 countries and is one of the largest youth prayer movements in the world. Read the SYATP History and find out how to be a part.
The tragic shooting at Fort Worth church in 1999, where 8 young people died, was a SYATP event. I was in Fort Worth that night, as a kick off to the Boaz Project. I feel this is a movement that God is using powerfully. They have already seen their martyrs and might one day see the great outbreaking of God''s grace that they are praying for.

Church Times - Clouds lift as Greenbelt booms

Greenbelt booms. 12000 total people, including 1000 children. I will try and make it there next year.

Youth in Australia and the Pacific are rising up to pray. This network is similar to the one we launched in Herrnhut.

Barna: Sept. 11 produced little spiritual fruit

Barna on Sep 11. : Church attendance spiked for several weeks after Sept. 11, but it was a short-lived revival. By November, attendance numbers had fallen back to the same levels as before the attacks.
___Barna found little or no change over the last year in the percentage of Americans who read their Bible regularly (41 percent), attend church (43 percent) or pray (83 percent). The percentage of unchurched Americans remained constant at 33 percent.

I put the pictures from the recent young prayer leaders gathering in Herrnhut online. Also check out the temporal website.

3,000 Swiss youth recovenanting with God for their nation. I just found the pictures of the Rütli event in April 2002. Seems pretty powerful to me. Also check out the main website.

Salon.com Books | Top 10 Cities on Richard Florida's Creative Class Index

Top 10 Cities on Richard Florida's Creative Class Index

Netscape.com

This morning’s requests: a San Franciscan is going to London and wants a postmodern church. An English girl is moving to Glasgow - same request. What did I suggest? Always different, of course, depending on who and what background they have, but I suggested Grace in London and a new church start in Glasgow led by the Christian Associates (based in Netherlands). The Glasgow team are very cool. One of them is French. They are hanging out in the Rave/Dance party scene and bringing life to the city of Glasgow, which is quite a tough city.

The young prayer leaders meeting in Herrnhut was powerful and impacted all that attended. I put a little report on my weblog.

Early registration for Soularize ends tomorrow. This is going to be a hoot but I dont think I can make it this year, even though I have a lot of friends who will be there.
I am also bummed that I cant make it to TOMFEST which starts today I think. Actually, they changed the name to Portico.
Tim is leading the DJ night and he asks for prayer:
Tim and Xeia say:
"Really we are simply a group of freaks who have found a niche this year :) we would appreciate prayer!
please pray about the festival, it IS a Christian-run fest, most of the bands are followers of the Way, but there are humans there, and where they go, sin follows.. please pray for the impact that these bands can make, that they would be bold with His name not only on stage, but in how they walk and talk and set an example to the thousands of kids there.
please pray that this year wuld be a year of artistic discovery and worshipful release of gifts and talents.. that our humble efforts (simply a group of artist types somewhat organized intoo an installation/worship expression/interactive opportunity) would bear fruit greater than we could ever expect.. (thru Him alone..)
also, we would appreciate specific prayer for saturday night, every year at this festival they have a token 'dj' night, incorporating some aspects of dj and rave culture into the flow and stream of subculture already evident (punk, goth, hiphop, avant..everything loud and colourful).. this year we seem to have been given this task .. we hope to lift up His name, to show how not only are many lovers of Jesus in this culture, but that God inhabits the praises of His people within it's expression.
we hope to run from a contemplative possibly liturgical ambient-media environment to a loud, Jesus -celebrating expression of rhythm, colour, light, sound, texture, harmony..
in His sweet Name and arms..
tim and xea westcott"

Greenbelt Festivals - The Fishtank

Greenbelt Webcam will keep you connected to the Greenbelt Festival this weekend.

Top Ten Signs Your Group is Getting TOO Small.

10. You can follow up on all group members without leaving your house.
9. Your daughter sets out her dolls, so there is only one empty chair.
8. During Prayer time you find yourself quoting Matthew 18:20 "Where two or three are gathered..."
7. Every Chair is the empty chair.
6. Your usual waitress at the restaurant where your weekly men's small group meets asks, "Will anyone be joining you this week?"
5. You over hear your son explain to a friend, "Naw, she doesn't always talk to herself. Just during small group discussions."
4. You say, "Tonight we're going to pray for the empty room." instead of the empty chair.
3. When you join in prayer and you have to hold your own hand.
2. You decide to grow the group by encouraging schizophrenia.
1. Worship involves: You, a guitar, and 5 cardboard cutouts.

-from Volume 1, Issue 14 of Small Group Dynamics-Byte Size, a free twice a month email from The Small Group Network @ .

A journey to Quebec (Canada) and New Hamshire to discover, and bless emerging networks of simple churches....

Link for a skateboarding outreach that is growing out of the life of our network.... Go Elizabeth!

Czech flood relief. Here is a list of organizations that will accept your donations on the Prague Post Online. I am in Prague right now and I have updates on my blog at Tallskinnykiwi.

Next week, 23-26 August, EPL will gather 55 young prayer leaders from 14 European nations in Herrnhut, Germany for a time of prophetic prayer and fellowship. We believe it's a 'kairos' time to see the birth of youth prayer movements all over Europe. Please stand with us in prayer: that the Lord will accomplish all that is on His agenda and that the Holy Spirit will move mightily. At the moment Saxony is suffering severe floodings and the centre of Dresden (that most of the participants have to cross) is under the water. So we could also use some extra prayer for travel mercies. More information on the event: http://www.joelnews.nl/connecteurope.htm.

This week in Joel News the first contribution on postmodern expressions of Church. Two more contributions will follow. Also interesting: Operation World for youth.

SLOT Festival is on today in Poland. Pray for fine weather and no flooding. I am back in Prague, Czech Republic where there is the highest flood waters for 130 years. Some of the city is underwater. During a prayer walk around the city of Prague 6 weeks ago, one of the Czech girls saw the waters rise into a flood. Now it has happened. What do the prophets say?

Help get the word out. Rudy Carrasco of Urban Onramps and Harabee Christian Family Center is partnering with other to put on the first Young Latino Leader Summitt. It is being held September 3-7, 2002 at the Anaheim Marriot Hotel in Anaheim, California. As the website asks, "Who will Step up and Lead the Latino church of the future? Who will plant innovative churches to reach the 2nd and 3rd generation Latino?" Join over 3,000 pastors and leaders from all over the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, and Northern Mexico for this historic gathering. TOGETHER we will launch a movement among "nuestra gente," lead a national dialogue, and create relevant models of evangelism for engaging our changing culture

This came to me from Spencer Burke at TheOOZE.

SOULARIZE: A LEARNING PARTY OCT. 15 - 18, 2002 MINNEAPOLIS, MN

EXPLORE the mystery, adventure, and community of ministry in our emerging culture. Join other artists, musicians, storytellers, church leaders, church planters, theologians, and community advocates. Over the past four years at Soularize, people have found refreshing and challenging ways to connect with other church leaders who are wrestling with ministry in the 21st century (whether you call it postmodernism, emerging generations, or the next church). Soularize 2002 will expose you to the latest trends, tools, authors and speakers and have the surprise moments that have made Soularize a unique and inspiring conference.

AUGUST 31ST IS THE END OF EARLY REGISTRATION for Soularize 2002 at $199 per person ($125 spouses). If you've been thinking about going, you might as well save some bucks and sign up now! (There are special discounts for multiple team member registration too.) After August 31, the cost is $249. http://www.TheOoze.com/Soularize

We know we?re reaching leaders in the emerging culture that are bi-vocational-if not multi-vocational-so scholarships are available based on need.

Soularize's unique edge is our speakers and experiences. For example:

THE REVEREND BERNICE KING, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is one of our featured keynote speakers.

THE DAMAH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TOUR--three days after the 2002 winners are announced, we will host the first stop on the 2002 Tour of this festival of spiritual experiences in film. http://www.damah.com/films.html

SOULARIZE WORKSHOPS come from our community, so it's virtually all the authors, speakers and friends that you've come to recognize, and a chance to meet in person many of those names or aliases you've run into on the phone or online. Brian McLaren, Liquid thinking, Rudy Carrasco, Tom & Christine Sine, Dan Kimball, Denise VanEck, Chris Seay, Karen Ward, Tony Jones, Holly Rankin, Mark Oestreicher, Heather Kirk-Davioff, Jordon Cooper, Joel Vestal, Andy Harrington, John Franke, Doug Pagitt

LARGE SCALE PUBLIC ART--Tour guides/docents will help us explore the emotional, aesthetic and spiritual impact of art in the largest urban sculpture garden in the U.S. and how the church might contribute to the arts.

INTERACTIVE LABS including video editing, digital photography, art expression, cyber café, theology pub, song-writing studio, experiential worship installations and screening room (bring your own videos). If you are a musician, you might want to consider joining our house band "The Dirty Worship Band" led by Tim Taber formally of The Prayer Chain.

15 MINUTES OF FAME - many conferences have representatives from companies come and tell you what you need, trying to sell you their wares. At Soularize we reverse the roles. Publishers, record companies, stock art buyers, etc. come to discover the new resources of the emerging culture. Bring your CD-Rom, your manuscript, your demo tape, or instrument and you'll have a chance to meet and talk with people that you'd have a difficult time meeting outside of the Soularize context.

If you love to learn in a hands-on relational way, and like the idea of a schedule with longer lunches and open evenings for discussion with fellow travelers, I hope that you'll check out the website and that we'll see you in Minneapolis in October. http://www.TheOoze.com/Soularize

Freakstock (01.-04.08.02) It has been a great festival again. Around 5000 people have been there. Every day GoD encouraged me and gave me a hopeful heart... It was good to be with many of my friends again, to be with my family (jesusfreaks.com). (Read also Andrews weblog.) Great to see for me was that there are similar groups in Chile (Christock) or Norway (SubChurch, dpFestival). SubChurch in Oslo and JesusFreaks Germany have the same roots: Martin Dreyer and his wife (JF) and also Morten Holmquist (SC) have been on this houseboat from YWAM in Amsterdam (maybe in 1990?), where they hung around with David Pierce and his band No Longer Music. After coming home Martin started the JesusFreaks and Morten the SubChurch - without knowing of each other! But GoD made his thing: The groups are very similar to each other, also in Chile. Good to see that we are not alone on this planet, with this idea in our heart which GoD gave us.

Greetings of peace to those in the Way all around the world. I am posting today to ask for your prayers for some of least of these among our brothers and sisters.

I attended a Christian boarding school in Pakistan growing up. Some of the best days of my life were lived in this crazy place called Murree (named after Mary the mother of Jesus--tradition says that she traveled there with Thomas and other pilgrims after the death of her other son James in 62--there is a tomb for her in Murree). Murree Christian School was attacked by terrorists Monday. Many people were killed.

• Please pray for the families of those killed. These deaths impact the families in many ways. The families are already a persecuted minority being poor Christians in Pakistan. With the passing of their father or older brother in this incident many have now lost their primary source of income.



• Please pray for the continued safety of the students and staff at MCS.



• Please pray for the families that are giving their lives and children for the message of peace in Pakistan.



• Pray for the attackers in this incident and for fortitude for those in the Way in this situation that they would find a way to love their enemies and in so doing enact the divine in their midst.

I'll be updating my blog with links to the story as they come available--theyblinked.blogspot.com.

Peace to you my friends,

Dan

a couple of great sites

sorry - i seem to be hogging the space. i'm away on holiday tomorrow for two weeks though so that will give you a break! anyway two great sites to check out that i have put pieces about on my blog. they are clubbers temple and flicker.

london get together tonight

tonight in london there is a get together of alternative worship groups round the capital. it seems there are at least ten that we know of - amazing! i guess we're kind of spoiled. i should have put this on the blog a while back but forgot... oops! but anyway here's the info

Good biology says "Cooperation increases survival chances". So Vaux and Grace and Epicentre are inviting anyone interested in mutated church to join them in a transgenic experiment upstairs at Horse (not with a Horse). Intended as an informal opportunity to talk-shop, exchange ideas and develop relationships. We want London Zoo to be a place where the M25 alt worship scene can come together in a relaxed context. To encourage, cross-fertilize, sharpen and envision.

Upstairs at Horse: 124 Westminster Bridge Road, SE1
Transport: Lambeth North (30 secs) Waterloo (5 mins)
Time: 1/8/02 8pm

probably worth mentioning too that there is also a get together for anyone involved or interested in alternative worship on the monday night at greenbelt 8pm in seminar tent 2.

A new day for a new generation. 100,000 people attended The Call New York City on Saturday 29th June. The prayer/worship event ran from 6am until 6pm and was held at Flushing Meadows - also known as the field of dreams. 16,000 people attended The Call England on Saturday 13th July. The prayer/worship event ran from 10am until 9pm and was held at the Madejski Stadium, Reading. 200,000 people attended the Catholic World Youth Days in Toronto between 22 and 28 July.



Also read some of the stuff Jonny suggested on 'churchless faith'. Gives good insight in why people leave the church. Alan Jamieson interviewed 108 people who have left churches in New Zealand and was surprised by what he found: people were not leaving 'mainline' or 'traditional' churches, but evangelical or pentecostal/charismatic churches, predominantly between the ages of 30-45, the vast majority held key leaderships positions before leaving, and had done either full-time Christian study/work, they had been involved in churches for an average of 15.8 years and the majority retain their faith while leaving the church.

who lives next door?

i spent the weekend in the san francisco/oakland area this past weekend and i found out something very interesting. i was looking for a particular church and only had a general cross streets as a location (14th and market). as i was searching for this church i decided to stop and ask some of the other churches where the church was. i approached a roman catholic church and through a small inforced window the women told me that she thought that they were the only church in the area. i turned around and right across the street was a very large lutheran church - they ministered in the same city, on the same street on blocks next to each other and believe it or not, neither knew the other was there. the luthern church had no idea where the other church was, and had no idea there was a roman catholic church across the street - how could this be? then it dawned on me - most of us have no idea who lives next door to us, so what makes me think the church would be any different? (pastor john)

Churchless faith - coming and going from evangelical churches

don't know if you've come across the book 'churchless faith' by alan jamieson. it's a piece of research of in depth interviews with people who have left (mainly evangelical/pentecostal churches) as to why they left and how they are pursuing faith now. it's both fascinating and compelling.

anyway the author/researcher is in london in sept giving a lecture/seminar at kings university. i attach details below that pete ward sent me. if you are interested in going e-mail pete

Got Alan Jamieson author of Churchless Faith coming to The Theology Mission and Culture Seminar at Kings College London on 25th Sept 12:30-2:00

The session will be in The Department of Education and Professional Studies, Waterloo Bridge Wing The Franklin Wilkins Building.There will be posters in the Lobby giving a room number.

Alan is from New Zealand and his recently published book is about the spiritual journeys of evangelicals who have left the Church. This is obviously a key area for most of us to consider. His paper is titled Churchless faith - coming and going from evangelical churches

Creative Class

Here's a verbatim from my own blog, the wonderful world of eggbert:

I'm checking out The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida. It's a look at creative and innovative people as a social group, and how they transform communities the more they are concentrated in a community.

I saw immediate parallels to what's happening in not-yet institutionalized new christian faith communities (that's cynical. We'll never institutionalize, of course!) forming around the country. My guess is that a large portion of those in these faith communities are among the creative class. Hmm...

Information on Soularize 2002 is available at http://www.theooze.com/soularize.
Joel News International published a summary of three articles on organic and subversive churches.

Etrek

Etrek starts up in September for those looking for ministry training that is experiential. I have been asked to be a faculty adviser. This should be a great way to get training. Aug 15 is the deadline for signing up.

I am in Italy checking out what God is doing and wants to do. Assisi was an amazing city and experience. It is a pilgrimage city and I expect the legacy of Francis will flavor the ministry of God in this country if He wants to do something new.

a blog trick!

paul prodigal fromont put me onto this cool thing for your blog where you can add comments after each posting. and guess what? - it's free! go to enetation and log in and then you just get a few lines of code to add in your template and it's that simple.

Ahoy, I am working at getting some Canadian pastors networked together and talking to one another (online at first and then in person). I have started a Yahoo! Groups e-mail list that you can sign up by sending an e-mail to canadiancontext-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you can pass the word along, that would be helpful.

envy

me, i'm looking for weather, food, night life, excitement, entertainment. i'm looking for a city that's open 24/7 and has so much to offer you could never do it all in a day - it would take weeks. a place where you can get a pizza, hot and fresh, at 3:00am or a primerib dinner for $5.00. a place where the people are young, or young at heart, and can turn party at the drop of a dime - that's what i would envy - but then again, i live in las vegas nevada and have all that ;-)

great. now I've got prague, seattle AND london envy! Can't even find a *%#$*&^% decent cup of coffee in a place called souderton (get a magnifying glass and search southeastern PA).

prague envy shared by me karen! i'm in london in the rain. ho hum....

Gliding

Sometimes it feels like I'm gliding on something so huge, so "of God", that it takes my breath away. Reading everybody's blogs, listening to stories, yearning for some fresh wind of the Spirit that is blowing so strong right now in our world - it's huge. And it's small. An orange house in Prague. A woman winging it in Seattle - a postmodern Lutheran! who would have thought it. Prayer ministers. Artists. Theologians. It's a great time to dance, to knock off a few sacred cows. It's huge, but it seems rather simple, too. I often try to make things complex, but having a little God party in your home - it takes a little planning (who's bringing the potato salad?), but it can also just kind of flow. We're getting a hot tub tomorrow, and my wife and I both thought, "now there's the start of a great house church!". Peace and blessings.

chill and pray in cyberspace

i'm bummed i could not be in prague. i'm gonna pray to god to get rid of my "prague envy." gonna do it at my computer... you too can carve out a bit of prayer time and sacred space while computing, by clicking over to jesuit "sacred space prayer" online. it is very relaxing and focusing to do this prayer before a hard day of blogging and cyber-jockeying. try it... just follow the onscreen directions, click, mediate, click, mediate, chill... via sacred space prayer

Inspiration Bohemia

I also was in Prague last week and truly enjoyed it. On http://marcsmessages.blogspot.com I published my daily impressions. In the mornings there were seminars on 'the practice of ministry in the post... world' and in the evenings several social events, including the prophetic wedding Abigail refered to.

Greetings from Prague! Just wanted to write about Derek Chapman and Amy MacDonald's wedding that I went to yesterday- it was amazing!!! God only told them to get married a week ago, as part of the Epicentrum Prague worship event (a follow-up to what happened in Austin, Texas last year). It's been a busy week pulling everything together, but a joy to serve them and be a part of what God was doing. It was costly for them to do their wedding this way, without family around and without all the minutely planned details, but it was a wedding which was true to them and to what God is doing in and through them, and it was a real blessing to be a part of it. With Derek and Amy being prophets, the wedding had a significantly prophetic edge (in terms of the church and where Jesus wants to take it as his bride) that I think we're all going to be processing for some time yet. But, in summary, it was cool!! And Andrew Jones looked extremely funky in his morning suit and biker boots!

Some news from Cincinnati...

God continues to open doors. This week Owen and Sandie are going to Chicago to help equip some urban missionaries. They were invited by friend Bart Campolo to speak to the City Directors of the Mission Year program. Mission Year places young people in urban neighborhoods for 1 year to live in communitiy with each other while serving and blessing urban neighborhoods. They do an amazing job of incarnating the gospel in some difficult places. The potential for them to plant reproducing house churches is enormous. I think the Brocks hope to inspire some of that while there. More info on Mission Year here

Dave and Jody are going to Columbus this weekend to teach at the Urban Center for Spiritual Formation. This is a new initiative led by our friends Mark and Jen Palmer from the Landing Place (a network of simple churches, ministries, and other cool artsy stuff). I’m assuming they’ll be teaching on spiritual formation in a community living context. I’m not sure. Dave’s not sure either. He probably won’t know till he opens his mouth and starts teaching this Saturday! Ahhh, the gift of teaching...

I’m buying tickets today for a trip to the east coast and Quebec. Joe Boyd and I are going there to build relationships with several church planters. Our goals are simply to learn from them and encourage them. We’re hoping that some partnerships will develop over time. There are several emerging networks on the east coast (as well some established ones we hope to see as well) and Quebec. The current plan is to go to Boston, New Hampshire, New York, and then drive to Quebec. The trip is being generously funded by DAWN ministries. More on this one as we get closer to the trip...

Author Douglas Rushkoff (Cyberia, Ecstasy Club, Media Virus, etc.) recently posted a fascinating piece about the renaissance occurring in global culture today -- tying together loose ends from art, mathematics and physics, media and of course the Internet. He writes about the change in perspective brought about by Renaissance art, and compares that to the multiplicity of perspectives occurrring in culture today. Here's a snippet: The evidence of today's renaissance is at least as profound as that of the one that went before. The16th Century saw the successful circumnavigation of the globe via the seas. The 20th century saw the successful circumnavigation of the globe from space. The first pictures of earth from space changed our perspective on this sphere, forever. In the same century, our dominance over the planet was confirmed not just through our ability to travel around it, but to destroy it. The atomic bomb (itself the result of a rude dimensional interchange between submolecular particles) gave us the ability to destroy the globe. Now, instead of merely being able to circumnavigate "God's" creation, we could actively destroy it. This is a new perspective. From his essay "Renaissance now?"

Kevin, If the drive takes you anywhere near Philadelphia, let me know. I'd love to hang out. I still owe you $10 for downloading a VC handbook! --eggbert

Met with freind, Joe Boyd last night... we're planning a trip to Boston/New Hampshire (USA) area in late July/early August... from there we plan to drive to Quebec City (Canada).... our plans are simple: to meet and hopefully encourage emerging networks of simple churches in the NorthEast (USA) and Quebec. If anyone has any contacts in those areas please let me know - kevin@vineyardcentral.com.... thanks.....

I was talking about what Andrew mentioned below on my blog this morning - won't go all into it again here. I repeat his call to pray for the Catholic Bishops this week at they meet in Dallas. You can listen to live coverage of the event there by going to EWTN, clicking on the "radio" menu and choosing "listen live." God's Grace be with them and the rest of His Body.

Article by Neil Cole found on House2House about True Apostles.

Pray for the Catholic Bishops. Bishops facing tough choices at Dallas meeting The nation's 300 Catholic bishops will meet in Dallas Thursday through Saturday and try to hammer out a policy on handling sex abusers, especially when it involves youth and children

alan, good question:

interesting, is it not, that we spend the better part of 18 years telling children that they are not allowed in "grown-up church" only to ask why, as adults, they are not in church? the reasons?

1. kids cry! praise God, some expression of emotion in church.
2. kids squirm! after a 40 minute boring sermon and dead songs - I SQUIRM.
3. kids don't understand! heck, 99% of the times adults don't understand (and the 1% they do, they don't get it right.)

i remember one of the very first churches i served as solo pastor (i was going to say "pastor solo" but then figured that would be too "star war-ie") i gave a "children's message" (usual a sign that we were about to kick the kids out of the church) after the service an elderly man came to me and said that that was the very first time in 50 years he actually understood what was being said. too many churches take to heart the kjv of scripture where it says "suffer the children unto me" - not remembering that the word "suffer" has changed in meaning. we need to embrace our children, the best way a child can learn to pray is to see their parents pray; the best way a child can learn how to be a cheerful giver, is to see their parents give with a cheerful heart. it does not matter how "cool" our children's program is, during worship - nothing is cooler then seeing tour parents worship a loving and true God.

- just my thoughts.

what do we do with the kids!?

That's a huge question for a lot of us who are planting churches in a new paradigm. Do we have "Sunday School"? Do we put them in a different house or room with a baby sitter if we're doing house church? What!? It seems the answer is coming back to a good many of us that it is high time the kids be treated as part of the community and allowed to participate in community activities, meetings, etc. like the adults. It's an integral part of the new ecclesiastical revolution if you ask me. So, how does that look? How? Rob Graham from Levi's Table e-mailed me about this, suggesting a new forum to discuss this. I thought - team blog! So we have started a new blog devoted to the ongoing discussion what do we do with the kids!? Take a look - you may even want to be a part. We have people already from one end of the US to the other, and New Zealand.

new job

i have a new job! this may come as a surprise to people that know me well as i've worked for youth for christ for 14 years now. but it's time for a change... i will be working for the church mission society as their national youth co-ordinator starting on 1 september. cms are a mission agency, strongly linked with the anglican church. they've been around for 200 years and have done fantastic stuff down the years all round the world. but like so many organisations they are wrestling with what it means to do mission and what church should now be like in the new cultural context we find ourselves in. to try and develop new approaches of mission and church cms have set a new department 'impact' - this is the department i will be part of. youth for cms is age 16-25. the positioning of the job in this department is an exciting move i think. the job is to help develop a mission movement amongst youth in the uk and also to link and join in with a global mission movement so the links via blogs and all that could grow. youth congregations, emerging church, and all that.... are very much part of the brief. i'll let you know how it goes!

New book says Christians suffered most "The New Persecuted, Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs"

New book reviewed here called "The Faith: A History of Christianity," by Brian Moynahan

community or tribe

we have been talking about the difference between "community" and "tribe" on the e-group "postmodern_theology" and i got to wondering. as a postmodern people we claim to want to be connected, and with the possible accepting of this blog - what community do we have? most of our "postmodern sites" operate in our respective vacuums, with the possible exceptions of jordon cooper, next-wave, ginkworld, and seven - we just don't "connect." i think, before we can say we want to develop community - we need to be willing to truly be connected. and when i say connected, we need to speak beyone "special events" that happen once a year, and only for those who can afford to get hook in - john

Alan Creech's accounting of last weeks event "Search Party" in USA is worth a read.

a perspective of one

A bunch of us were at Search Party in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. I've written an article of my thoughts on the whole thing. It's now on this month's edition of Next-Wave along with several others from some in this very company of bloggers - Andrew (both Jones and Careaga), Mike Bishop, and I'm not sure if Jason Evans is in this bunch but he has something up there on house churches as well. Have fun!

"God's throne in heaven is a sofa. How else could Jesus sit down at God's right hand?"

Small Ritual

Networking emerging prayer leaders

Just joined akingdomspace. Thanks Andrew for the invitation. I'm currently networking young prayer leaders for an event called Connect Europe. Maybe you can help:



a. who are the young leaders (under 35) in your nation who are leading a national prayer movement for their generation, or who are pro-actively rallying young people to pray for the nation?

b. who are the young leaders (under 35) in your nation that do not yet lead such a movement, but have the potential to kick-start something like that within the next two years?



Mail me their names and e-mail addresses and earn a free pint of beer (or milk when you're American) when we meet in Prague. :-)

Also added some stuff to the toolbox like the requested book list - Toolbox.

Being a Megachurch Is No Longer Enough

New York Times article (free subscription required) about how megachurches are moving into self-contained miniture cities with amusement parts, McDonalds, stores, gyms, sports leagues. A one stop religious service provider. It will be interesting to see what these things look like 20 years from now.

Like the two Andrews, I'm back from Search Party - good stuff. I won't repeat myself here, but you can see my rambling thoughts - some as they were taking place - on the vine and on my blog as well. It was great meeting some of the kingdomspacers face to face. Talk to you later.

Some prophetic thoughts about Holland

Porterville Recorder: News Column "The National Association of Evangelicals plans to close its California office and consolidate operations in its Washington office.
The Rev. Leith Anderson is now serving as interim president."

Back home and blogging again, I've posted a few thoughts about Search Party, focusing specifically on the "e-tools" forum. I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts you might have. The blog is here. Grace and peace to you! Andrew Careaga.

At Search Party now - I just wanted to post something quickly to say that things are going well. Good stuff here. Good connections with people - I met you today Andrew J. and Andrew C. I'm sure there'll be more to say later - going to bed now.

Headin' to Search Party tomorrow morning! Yeee Haw! I'll see many of you guys on this blog there - except Craig! Craig! I'll have a Newcastle and spit some up in the air for you man. I think pouring it on the ground would be slightly out of place seeing as you're still alive. I'll be checking out this Route 66 place too Andrew C. You'll be there too - maybe you can join our ever growing Guinness / microbrew outing. I am very excited about getting together with so many significant people in the Kingdom - and some kinda big shot speaker types too. Being together with people who are seeing and hearing the same things will be an amazing thing. Just maybe some of us can get online somewhere while we're there and post some reactions on the conference. We'll see. Talk to some of you guys tomorrow!

look, up in the sky..... it's a bird...... it's a plain........ no it's punk monkey - and he's wearing some stupid towel (red, with blue flowers) and a diaper. i know, it seems strange to have such an opening - punk monkey's don't wear diapers - gosh, that's rich. anyway, i got to thinking today - as i often do on off tuesdays - that we seem to put such stock in heroes of past - you know the fallen heroes, and the "perfect heroes." i remember a few months ago i wrote an article (shameless plug for ginkworld) an article saying that superman was not a hero - well, he ain't - how much of a hero do you need to be if you run into a burning building with full knowledge that nothing will hurt you? just the rambling thoughts of a punk monkey -

According to a new study about the life of churches in the USA, small churches still dominate the religious landscape. From the news report: "American worship is lopsided toward small congregations, fewer men in the pews, a once-a-week gathering and few newcomers at the service." Moreover, "'Most worshippers are not involved in small groups in their congregation,' the study said. Also, 'in an entire year, most people did not invite even one person.' ... On the bright side, the report said it dispelled several myths about congregation life, such as that most worshippers are retirees or that congregations lack forces for change." From CT's Weblog. For Newcastle Brown Ale or just about any other microbrew available in St. Louis (which is home to Anheuser-Busch, the anti-microbrew), I suggest a trip to Route 66 Brewery in St. Louis's Union Station on Market Street. Here is one review of the products available there. The food is decent, too, as are the prices.

Search Party

You are becoming my favorite people I've never met (ok, I spoke to Karen for about 3 minutes at Soularize last year).

Karen, Alan, and whoever else is up for it, tip a pint for me in St. Louis. Track down a Newcastle Brown Ale - my favorite - if you can. Have a blast. Tell me all about it when you get back.

See you in Minneapolis. Anybody have the skinny on Soularize? Haven't heard much from Spencer and Matt recently.

grow your own! (church planting network)

this is karen ward (in the pacific nortwest region of north america).

my latest project might have been motivated by jealousy, but god can use even that, to plant seeds for the kingdom.
on some post (on the blog of alan creech), i found out about an organic church planters group that was started in the heartland of the united states called the "midwest greenhouse."


immediately, i sent alan an e-mail saying "can i come out and play?" then, i realized that in order to play, you had to be in proximity to the playground... and i was 2000 miles (3218 kilometers) away. oh lord, what to do... well, maybe we'll build our own swing-set here in "cascadia" (our own little neighborhood of washington, oregon and british columbia).

knowing that each context is different, we will not ask alan to export to us a ready-made, "add water and stir," carbon copy of the playground kit they are using in the midwest. what god wants, i think, is for us to share the same spirit, yet grow our own local expression and network. ironically, "growing your own" is what people out here are known for. our region is a haven for free spirits and "do it yourselfers," and our pioneer spirit is evident in everything from our local microbrewed coffees, to our kickin' microbrewed beers.

today, i'm meeting with two other seattle church planters, eugene cho of quest and dwight friesen of another quest, to talk about what kind of swing-set we can build in our soon to be formed "northwest hothouse,"
a place to disciple one another, to re-create, to share, to discern, to grow in the knowledge and fear of god, and to otherwise play in the fields of the lord in the pac northwest (so stay tuned...)

it's happening everywhere

have just returned from toronto doing a week's training at wycliffe which is an anglican college. surprise surprise they were facing the same issues as the rest of us - struggling church, old forms of church no longer connecting, and were hungry for ideas and connections with new things that might work.... we did our best to spark their imaginations and creativity. but it's clear that the shift we all bang on about is happening all over - up the revolution....

urban, suburban, rural, does it matter???

I was ranting on my blog on Saturday about the fact that I - yes I - live in the suburbs. Oh my Gaaawwwwdd!!! I won't go on and on about it here again. I probably did too much there. The question that arises out of my thoughts and talking to other friends is this: Where are we? Where are we who are (what are we anyway?) - who are trying to do this "nuevo church" thing - to reinvent how the community of Christ is lived out on the planet??? Are we all in the inner city? Are we all doing exactly the same things in the same ways? I think the obvious answer is no -> I point to my brother's reference to "liking rainbows" below. Some of us live in the suburbs. Some of us like it and not because we are greedy, self-absorbed, isolationist Christians. Most of the people in my neighborhood are around my age actually. I think we just live where we live. As I said the other day, we who are in the Kingdom need to be anywhere there are those outside the Kingdom - we need to infect every neighborhood and village."

I'm excited about meeting a bunch of wild people in St. Louis at Search Party in a few days. Just being together with people who are as weird as I am for a little while will be a good thing. See you there!

there are three kinds of modern people in this world - those who like red, those who like blue and those who like green. those who like red will not be seen with those who like blue or green; those who like blue will not be seen with those who like rd or green; those who like green will not be seen with thos who like red or blue. there is one kind of postmodern in this world - those who like rainbows; and we wonder why moderns and postmoderns don't mix? - punk monkey (ginkworld.net)

Christianity is growing robustly, according to historian Philip Jenkins, who says the quintessential Christian of the future will not be a white male surbanite but a poor brown-skinned woman from a huge city in the Third World.

Fall and rise of ChristianityIn his latest book, "The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity," Jenkins says that the center of Christianity has moved southward and the typical Christian in the world today is a Latin American or African woman.
Currently, Europeans make up about 28 percent of the world's Christian population, down from 70 percent in 1900, said Dana Robert, a theology professor at Boston University who has written extensively on global Christianity.
By the year 2050, six nations will each have over 100 million Christians, Jenkins projects. Only one, the United States, represents the "advanced industrialized world." The other countries are Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).
Jenkins notes that "traditional heartlands of Christianity" such as Britain, France and Italy are absent from the list.

the vine

I just created a new community blog for our - well, for our community. I know it's a ch, chu, "church" but I try not to use that word as much as possible if not only to get away from my own baggage. It's called "the vine". I was obviously inspired by this thing. We're a small bunch and this blog has just gotten started but I hope it will be a very cool way for others to look into what we're doing in a real way - oh, and Kevin Rains is very jealous that I have done this - so I told him I would help them set one up as well - the revolution has begun!

Living Springs

Hi. I edit a quarterly dealy-bob called Living Springs. Here's a link to the lastest issue, focused on peacebuilding. Email me at eggbert and let me know what you think.

Punks Turned Monks

Punks Turned Monks. I heard great things about this group.

The latest issue of the Internet for Christians newsletter has a nice plug for my newsletter on Internet evangelism. For some reason, though, there's a broken image that should link to e-vangelism.com. Not sure what happened there. Oh well. At any rate, it's quite an honor to be listed in the newsletter. Thanks, Peggie!