Klar gesagt

Some messages are simple...

needing your help

when tragedy hits, our faith is tested and measured. when "something goes wrong" we see how our faith is embedded in our lives. how we react to tragedy is a direct measure of how secure we are in our faith. this is real personally, and this is real collectively. when tragedy hits, we can either gather in support of the injured, or we can simply ignore their hurt and say "there but for the grace of God go i" - my prayer is that we react and we support.

i received an email from keith giles [you know, "keith's voice"] and he shared with me some news i would like to share with you - and see if you can help in some way; on june 20th, "the simple way" house, community center and neighborhood were the victims of a 7 alarm fire - destroying most of what was there. thank God no one seems to have been injured, but the emotional reality of a fire and the destruction that follows can be very traumatic.

if you, your church, your community, your family can help in any way possible - that would be great. our friend tony campolo has set up a donation page for those seeking to give, and the link to that will be at the bottom of this post. also, i have included a link to the simply way's website for those interested in knowing more - and contacting them directly with help offers.

if you desire, you can send checks directly to the simple way at:

The Simple Way
PO Box 14751
Philadelphia, PA 19134.

visit the the simple way website for more info: the simpleway
tony's donation page: click here


here is a 3.25 minute video of what happened:

Cultivate: A Learning Party

Cultivate is a learning party happening on Saturday, August 19, 2006 in Hamilton, ON. It's presented by Resonate and is intended to inspire church planting and new forms of church all across Canada. If you are in the north east part of the United States you are more than welcome to join us as well.

A learning party? What does that mean? Well, basically it's designed to be everything good about a conference without all the rigamarole... and much more fun and interactive.

• Instead of charging in the hundreds of dollars for one ticket, it's only $25 and that includes a terrific lunch.
• Instead of maxing out our capacity we are limiting our numbers to give everyone there the best possible environment for networking.
• Instead of bringing in a mainline, American speaker to tell us what they already wrote in their latest book we are looking to local church planters and leaders to tell their stories.
• Instead of you listening to message after message and being filled with information we want you to be part of a dialogue with people in similar shoes and learn and grow within that relationship.
• Instead of some fancy shmancy hotel, convention centre or big church building, Cultivate is taking place at a local coffee house: www.frwy.ca
  

Cultivate is happening because of numerous conversations between different people, organizations, networks and churches in Canada that long to see new forms of church thrive and relational networking happen. We are tired of the same old, same old conferences and just simply want to be friends, inspire each other, and swap stories, ideas, and encouragement.

For more details or to register (there are a limited number of spots left): www.cultivategathering.com

Disaster Relief in Pakistan

A friend of many of us, Dan Hughes sent an e-mail about the work his brother Trevor is doing with disaster relief in Pakistan. He has set up a disaster relief blog chronicling what his organization is doing as well as some other ways we can help get some relief to the people that need it. If you can pass on the word on your blogs, e-mail, or word of mouth, it increases the speed that those that are over there, can make a difference.

Steve Taylor's A to Z of the Emerging Church

You can find the list here.

Flickr: Resonate

I haven't talked about this in a while but the fun and loving folks that make up Resonate and others have a Flickr photo pool that is full of images suitable for worship and other media. As of today, there were 926 images online and all are free to download and use (but check out the Creative Commons license before you use them). If you are looking for digital images, you will be able to find them here.

The Resonate Journal is now online

Resonate has launched the Resonate Journal at www.resonate.ca/journal/. It is a publication of faith, theology, and the Gospel in a postmodern Canadian culture. Check it out and pass on the word.

Fire From The North

Shetland Islands. Fire From the North Strategic Prayer Conference, August 2005
This silent movie is Quicktime .mov
Report
Images

weblog :: jordoncooper.com: The Personal M.Div

40 books, 20 articles. A Personal M.Div. Enter your suggestions here.

The Resonate Journal :: Coming September 1, 2005

Along with other church leaders across Canada, we are publishing a journal of theology, spirituality, and praxis in a postmodern Canadian culture. While the publication isn't ready to launch yet (it's going live on September 1st), you can sign up for more information at www.resonate.ca/journal/

a survey worth taking :)

i know, i am not big on surveys - but i thought this one was worth taking - and it is very short, very short.

a friend of mine at "forministry.com" is considering starting a new blog exclusively devoted to scripture engagement in a emerging/postmodern context. what i love most about this idea is that they are not saying "this is what we are going to be." here is what my friend tells me about the blog:

"I wish I could give you a compact blurb regarding what our new blog will be, but we're still trying to determine that. The best I can do is tell you that it'll be committed to the evolving dialog taking place around the Bible in the emerging postmodern context."

that is just so cool - if you can, please take the time to hit this link and take the survey - it's helping build the kingdom and getting more people involved in the conversation.

link

D A Carson and Conversant with Emergent

Scott McKnight had the office next to DA Carson for years and has a review of Conversant with Emergent on his blog. Both entries are worth reading.

• Part 1


• Part 2

Spain: Contra Corriente at Art3

The Contra Corriente Network in Spain ask for prayer tomorrow (16th) as as they take part in the Art3 Festival in Madrid.

Worship Art and Literacy Conference

April 18-21 at Asbury Theological Seminary. Some of the main speakers include Sister Rose Pacatte, Brian McLaren, Maggi Dawn, Fr. Thomas Hopko, Robert Webber, Claude Nikondeha, and others. Looks good. Check out the website for more information.

Kubik: Emerging Church in Germany

I preached at a great church in Germany last week called Kubik. Details here.

Pilgrimage Rest

Bruce Anderson has a new discussion group out contemplative spirituality at Yahoo! Groups and a group blog here. Check the site out for more information.

Resonate, The Magazine

Resonate is launching a webzine about the Gospel in a Canadian postmodern culture on June 1st, 2005. Check out this space for more details.

Soularize and Flickr

For those of you who are heading to Soularize and even for those of you who are gathering online, make sure you upload your pictures and screenshots to Flickr and tag them with Soularize so the rest of the world will be able to see what is happening. If you do tag your images with Soularize, anyone can see them on Flickr by going to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/soularize.

You don't have to do anything else and it gives everyone a glimpse into Soularize even if they were not able to attend (how cool is that?). If you don't have a Flickr account, you can get a basic on by heading to www.flickr.com and signing up. It's free for a basic account and only $30 annually for the pro version.

Soularize is a month away!

One month till Soularize 05, in sunny Southern California, March 9-11, three full days for $99.

If in the past you have found TheOoze to be a valuable resource you will want to know you can join us face to face in one of the most alternative communities in the nation - Venice Beach, CA - for our 6th annual "Learning Party".

Always on the cutting/bleeding edge of the postmodern/ALT/emerging church, Soularize 05 is filled with innovation (free high speed wifi access, webcasting, simulations regional gatherings), grass roots leaders (voices you may already know and so many surprising friends you won't hear anywhere else), proactive daily themes (fleshing out the issues the church will be addressing in the next 5 years - Kingdom, Community, Rhythm, AIDS...), and multiple learning styles (Large gatherings, interactive labs, hands-on/in-the-field small groups, collaborative web postings and parties - 2nd annual Ooze booze cruise - celebrating what we have discovered).

Join Heather Reynolds (the woman, who introduced Oprah Winfrey to the AIDS pandemic through her South African orphanage "Gods Golden Acre"), fellow learners - Todd Hunter and Patrick Burke (living out the Gospel in Harlem), Voices of conscience - Christine Sine (Spirituality and Rhythm) and Shirin Taber (the Muslim Next Door), Now famous targets Brian McLaren and John Franke (via live Web uplinks), Bloggers (Sarah Dylan Breuer, Rudy Carrasco, Andrew Jones, Jordon Cooper, Malcolm Hawker, Chris Marrow, Jason Evans, Dwight J. Friesen, Todd Hunter and John O'Keefe) and the unconventional minds of Barry Taylor and Jerry Peloquin (a founding member of Jefferson Airplane).

Anyone who has attended a Soularize will tell you it is a one-of-a-kind event, never to be repeated, full of unexpected moments that have become legendary in the emerging church story... where you become the event and you leave with life long friendships.

Hope you can join me and let your community know about it too,
Spencer

Soularize 2005

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience - Books & Culture

Ron Sider asks, "Why don't Christians live what they preach?" in Christianity Today

Not surprisingly, the movement's numbers translated into political influence. And the renewal movement was so confident of its beliefs and claims that it persuaded the nation's top political leader to have the government work more closely with religious social service organizations to solve the nation's horrendous social problems. Members of the renewal movement knew that miraculous moral transformation of character frequently happened when broken persons embraced the great religion. They also lobbied politicians to strengthen the traditional definition of marriage because their ancient texts taught that a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman was at the center of the Creator's design for the family.

Then the pollsters started conducting scientific polls of the general population. In spite of the renewal movement's proud claims to miraculous transformation, the polls showed that members of the movement divorced their spouses just as often as their secular neighbors. They beat their wives as often as their neighbors. They were almost as materialistic and even more racist than their pagan friends. The hard-core skeptics smiled in cynical amusement at this blatant hypocrisy. The general population was puzzled and disgusted. Many of the renewal movement's leaders simply stepped up the tempo of their now enormously successful, highly sophisticated promotional programs. Others wept.

This, alas, is roughly the situation of Western or at least American evangelicalism today.

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."1 Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.

from jesus to christ: jesus' many faces

An interesting (if debatable) website from PBS. via

Resonate Photo Pool

First of all, the Resonate Photo Pool now has over 500 pictures in it. That's very cool and thank you to everyone who contributes. You are all amazing (but you knew that already). TheOoze.com's co-founder and noted photographer Spencer Burke has recently uploaded some pictures to our group and has awaken from his long blog nap. That's cool too.

One of the questions we had was, "what kind of pictures do we post to it?". That discussion is still happening and as part of the answer, I created a place called Resonate Stories, that is a place where people can upload pictures too that are what we see God doing across Canada. A kind of visual almanac of our faith journey. If you want to post, it is easy and free to join Flickr and even easier to join our visual almanac space.

Christendom-era Church DNA flaws

Jonny Baker points to an amazing article by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost about the church's DNA flaws.

The Christendom-era church has these three flaws in its DNA; it is attractional, dualistic and hierarchical.

By attractional, I mean the church plants itself within a particular neighbourhood and expects that people will come to it to meet God and find fellowship with others. There's nothing unbiblical about being attractive to unbelievers. There was certainly an element to which the early church was attractive to the wider community (Acts 2:47), though there is much more evidence that the church was reviled and avoided in its early days. Nonetheless, when I say it is a flaw for the church to be attractional, I'm referring more to the stance the church is taking in its community. By anticipating that if we get our internal features right, people will flock to our services, the church betrays its belief in attractionalism. It's the "If you build it, they will come" mentality. How much of the traditional church's energy goes into adjusting their programs and their public meetings to cater to an unseen constituency. The emerging missional church recognizes is compelled to move out from itself into its community as salt and light.

When I have consulted with churches that recognize the need to embrace a missionary stance in their communities, I'm amazed at the number of times, when asked to discuss specific ways they can recalibrate themselves to become missional churches, they begin talking about how to change their Sunday service. It betrays their fundamental allegiance to being attractional. The tailoring of worship services is a lot further down the priority list for missional church leaders. The Come-To-Us stance taken by the attractional church is unbiblical. It's not found in the Gospels or the epistles. Jesus, Paul, the disciples, the early church leaders had a Go-To-Them mentality.

That is just a short exerpt. The rest of the article is excellent and is a much read.

Resonate Studio

Just a note to mention Resonate Studio, a gathering on the Canadian prairies in the middle of February (yes, apparently we are stupid) to share, learn, and dream about what God is doing in western Canada. If you are in the neighborhood...