I’m enjoying the 12 days of Christmas cheer with the family — hope to chat with many of you in the New Year — I plan to ‘return’ (online) on the 9th of January…
Christmas peace,
Ryan
Technorati Tags: everyday life, vacation
I just got off the phone with J. Shawn Landres, the primary organizer of the 24-hour gathering of Synagogue 3000 and Emergent this coming January. Synagogue 3000 (or S3K) is a leadership network among innovative synagogues throughout the US. They host consultations, sponsor congregational research, and engage the changing dynamics of culture. Periodically they invite outside speakers to dialog about issues concerning their work. This past June they hosted Rick Warren from Saddleback Community Church. With this January event, they are hosting two groups — key leaders within Emerging Churches (Emergent and other like-minded practitioners) and key leaders in emergent-like synagogues throughout the US.
By inviting Emerging/Emergent folks to come to this gathering, S3K leaders hope to illuminate some of the issues they face as congregations in the 21st century. Similar to many of the conversations going on in the evangelical movement in the US, these synagogues wrestle with how to express their way of life culturally. The discussion among traditional (pre-1960s), modern (Calvary Chapel, Vineyard, Purpose-Driven, Seeker, Gen-X) and postmodern (emerging, organic, alternative, neo-monastic) communities is not limited to the Christian faith. Those in S3K have read the books on Boomer religion, on Gen-X ministry, and on Emerging Churches. They have questions and they are therefore inviting a dialog on these issues.
I will be joining Wade Clark Roof and Steven M. Cohen as academic “provokers” of conversation. During this evening presentation, we will discuss the dynamics of cultural and religious expression in the US. Other activities during the twenty-four hour consultation include diverse meetings of twos and threes for textual study interspersed by music and singing. The program is not yet complete, but the main activity will be talking, talking, talking, about culture and faith expression in the US. Of course, the back-channel activity will be relationship-building with the hopes of friendships amongst the participants.
My first impressions of Shawn Landres and the S3K folks are extremely positive. I’m so jazzed to be a part of this event.
Technorati Tags: denominations, Emergent, Emerging_Church, Leadership, S3K, Synagogue 3000
I had the great pleasure to have dinner with Kevin Rains when he was in town recently. Kevin is pastor of Vineyard Central in Cincinnati. My relationship with Kevin goes back to 2001 when I contacted him for my research on Emerging Churches. His story surprised me — it was a watershed moment in my research and for me personally. This church was unlike any Vineyard I had seen.
A little background — my roots are in the Vineyard — I go way back to a pre-Wimber Vineyard. I spent a good amount of time with the people at Anaheim as well — I went on the ministry trips, I got to ‘do the stuff’ (Wimber’s mantra for physical healing in the 1980s). I saw the many flavors of Vineyard, both regionally and with every new movement they embraced and then rejected. But the stories Kevin shared I had never heard — he represented an expression of church that I had not seen in the Vineyard or anywhere else in the US. It gave me my first hope that the US may experience some of the vital, more indigenous forms of community that was becoming prevalent in the UK.
Here is a bit of their story. In 1994, when their Vineyard church lost their building, they transformed into a community of house groups. Having exorcised the Sunday service = church spirit out of their system, they began a weekly meeting in a Catholic church building as well. The core of the community began to live together and share a common purse. They located themselves in one of the poorer sections of town and served their community regularly. They hosted a cafe. They adopted a more explicit contemplative lifestyle, practicing spiritual disciplines and adopting a ‘rule’ for the community. They did not abandon any aspect of their Vineyard heritage, but enhanced it, filling it out. One could argue that this was ‘doing the stuff’ of Jesus, a holistic version.
They did this intuitively, without any explicit modeling. They felt their way and became pioneers. Early on, I saw their influence grow to other communities in the US as well, simply because they had been at it longer and Kevin has a pastor’s heart. Their community strongly resembled Tribal Generation in Sheffield (UK), but they had zero contact at the time.
On his visit out here, Kevin caught me up on his community and the current challenges they face. As a bi-vocational pastor, Kevin doesn’t have it easy. He often works all day at work and then his pastoral responsibilities begin. But it sounds like his work has turned a corner and he is pleased with where the church is at. He is pondering some new ministry initiatives that sound pretty exciting. Their community continues to grow in influence, both in the Vineyard and elsewhere. Renewal always come from the margins, and Vineyard Central is no exception.
Technorati Tags: Emerging_Church, neo-monastic
Student evaluations are a bit scary to read at first, but in the end, yield some very helpful insights.
Some of the things I learned this week as I read my student reviews:
Even though we introduced blogs and wikis to the class, and for many this was a first -time event, students do not want any class time spent on technology. Possible solution: do a half-day or one-day seminar each quarter on tech tools for seminary students. This would cover blogs, wikis, social bookmarking (del.icio.us and flickr), RSS, and podcasting (and maybe video). If the students had these skills coming in, we could have moved further into the content.
Students want very clear directions in the course. I did not adequately explain where we were going with the wiki and other tasks in the course, as I wanted to see how they were progressing before becoming explicit about all of my expectations. Students didn’t find this helpful. They wanted the whole picture at the start. I will work to be explicit, more clear about expectations, and move the course to more of a fixed format.
Students wanted help with integration — the lectures described Jesus and social transformation, the books covered culture, and their research looked at a significant social problems on a world scale. Their blog was where much of the integration occurred, but they wanted more corporate interaction, beyond their group. I will need to shift class-time to be more integrative of the course resources.
Students needed more of the core concepts of the course before they could adequately perform as Internet researchers. I wanted them to get into the research and so start scouring the Internet from the beginning, coming up with ten sources of data in their chosen topic on a weekly basis. In the end, they didn’t find this helpful, they needed more conceptual tools. I will push aspects of the internet research back in the course so that they could grasp the basics first (in this case, Jesus and social transformation).
Students really liked the individual blogs, the group blogs, and the wiki (towards the end). Lots of scared looks the first two weeks, :^0 , but after that point, the students settled into the rhythm of the work. The students became a learning community with their project team (of 2-5 others). They read each other’s blogs, they sometimes ate meals together, they struggled over what should be on the wiki. They said they learned about diversity and how to overcome their own biases through their group. For many students, the weekly online process was the most challenging and rewarding aspect of class. I will keep this weekly pattern of interaction but tweak it a bit based on the feedback. But I couldn’t have been more pleased with this 24-7 learning community.
Students said repeatedly they were happy that their wiki would live on into the future, serving churches worldwide.
It was a good quarter — the students were great…
Technorati Tags: Fuller Theological Seminary, education
Well, my wife and I had the talk, and now that I am post-quarter (school), post-book, and post-dissertation, maybe I need to shift to pre-more-work-around-the-house…So we brainstormed and the laundry would lift the largest burden. So I am the laundry guy. The one who does the laundry. If its laundry in the house its me. I got it covered. My daughter, this morning, when she found no socks the right color, had to shift her ire to me as opposed to mom. Yep, this changes everything.
However, the story doesn’t stop there. You see I have a gift (read problem) that whatever I participate in, I need to know the history, the big picture, the players, the lay of the land. Why do we do such and such. You get the picture. Yes, I did it, and I know that I went over the top with this. I ordered several books on the history of laundry. And, yes, they exist. And I have them. In my library. You can’t borrow them until I’m done…
Expect Emerging Laundries to come out in 2007 — still looking for a publisher…
I really have issues.
Technorati Tags: everyday life
The quarter is over and I’m starting to find my feet again!! Developing two new classes kept me pretty busy. I remember when I was a student, racing to get my papers in on time. Things aren’t that different now, in my new role as professor, the routine seems strangely familiar. Instead of turning in my paper at the beginning of class to be graded by the instructor, I present an oral version of my paper to the class to be graded (usually implicitly!) by fifty very smart students…Just as intimidating! But I’m not saying it wasn’t fun — I loved it. It’s the best thing I can think of doing with myself vocationally. Nothing could be better.
Just now, I’m getting ready to read my grade for the course (the student reviews of the course)…I’m using these praises/critiques to plan the next course, so I can see what worked and what didn’t. Technologically, we used blogs, wikis and podcasts (extra credit), and next quarter I would like to add social bookmarking (del.icio.us and flickr), some video casting of the lectures, and some elementary RSS, but I don’t want to push them too far. We’ll see how it goes. I hope to get a good start on the planning in the next few weeks.
Right now, I will get a bit of a breather, as next quarter I only have one course to teach, Emerging Churches, which is an intensive that meets three hours a day for ten days in late January, early February. It will be a good first go with the new book, which will now form the backbone of the course. We will take a chapter per class session and explore it as far as we can go…It may be the last time I teach it with Eddie Gibbs — he is retiring :^( — so I will prize our time together. Eddie and I love to teach this material together — we piggy-back on each other really well. I can talk about churches less than ten years old, and he can talk about all the other ones! The constant in my time with Eddie is laughter, and I’m sure this class will be no exception…
At any rate, it is good to slow down a bit and enjoy all the great stuff God is doing -
Technorati Tags: Fuller Theological Seminary, everyday life
I was interviewed yesterday for a possible documentary on Mission in the Twenty-First Century by a ministry in Asia. Here are their questions followed by my initial tries at an answer:
What is a major theme of what you see God doing in your particular area of the world?
We see the first efforts at intentional mission within Western Culture. When Lesslie Newbigin labeled the West a mission field after returning to a secularized England from a very spiritual India in the early 1980s, his words rang alarm bells in Christendom. Why would a ‘Christian’ nation need mission? It is still controversial, even today. For example, missional churches raise great concern in the US, the Gospel in our Culture Network and Emergent in the United States serving as prime examples.
How is “missions” changing?
Missions are becoming more urban, more spiritual, more holistic, and more understanding of culture (both inside and outside the church). Mission organizations are looking less like the large company and more like mobile monastic communities.
In your area of the world, what major trend characterized missions in the 20th century?
In my part of the world, mission did not exist until very, very late in the century. Mission in the sense of a church looking to embody all of its practices within the host culture is still quite the exception.
From your vantage point, what trend(s) do you see developing for the future of missions during this 21st century?
Just as some of the best missionaries served and facilitated the development of local theologies overseas, 21st century missionaries in the West need to facilitate self-theologizing communities rather than impose 16th century responses to current questions. I see less a focus on the church service and more on the mission. These will be ‘activist’ communities — no spectators allowed. Churches will become more like highly committed monastic communities. The producer/consumer dualism of clergy/laity will become less obvious. Churches will not adhere to the sacred/secular split — they will all areas of reality as spiritual — even social justice work.
How do you feel about these changes/developments?
I‘m excited. It represents a sea change for the western church. It is also a huge challenge, because many evangelicals are unaware of the deep cultural indebtedness of their particular traditions — they see their particular cultural answers as absolutely and ahistorically true. Thus, their mission takes the form of converting outsiders to a particular historical interpretation of the faith rather than a dynamic, incarnational interchange. On the other hand, missionaries must hold their particular theologies lightly, knowing that their theological answers and questions might change in the interplay.
What do you see is the role of the Church in the West in missions? In your opinion, how can the Western Church most effectively contribute to the missions enterprise and make long-term impact? In what way(s), do you see “partnership in mission” as a developing trend?
The West must leave its Christendom assumptions of mission behind. The West must serve as advocates, as facilitators, as servants of other local expressions of Christ-following communities. They must be willing to let go of power. Partnership is the only way that the West can give voice to the other — to give space to the less powerful at the table. But it will be a big challenge for Americans who are used to calling the shots.
How can the Western Church be impacted by the Church in other areas of the world? What lesson(s) does the Western Church need to learn?
Western churches need to learn how to be a faithful church without constant access to political power. How to live at the margins as salt and light. We need to stop fighting the culture wars and look to where God is at work within the culture. We need to become 24-7 spiritual/secular communities. We need to serve our neighbors in meaningful ways. We need to live the gospel and not simply adopt the metanarratives of our culture or our faith traditions.
Technorati Tags: mission, Western Culture
I was asked by our Fuller publicists to ponder what an interview on Emerging Churches with Eddie Gibbs and I might look like and here is a brief sketch of a hypothetical interview (with my apologies to Larry King):
This is Larry King and I have two professors from Southern California who say the church has undergone a very dramatic change in the last ten years. I’m talking about their new book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures. Eddie Gibbs, tell me a little about yourself and your good looking assistant there, Ryan Bolger.
We are two Fuller Seminary professors in Southern California, our disciplines cover church growth and contemporary cultures…blah, blah, blah…
Eddie and Ryan: Is this all about adding coffee and candles to church??
That is what we first thought — but we were very surprised to see it is about much much more — a fundamental shift in the understanding and practice of church itself…
You say these communities retrieved Jesus — don’t all churches do this?
Most churches do recognize Jesus as Christ, but ignore the way he lived. These traditional churches see Jesus as unique, that he was the son of God, and so they wonder what they can learn about themselves from him. But we must remember he was human and he shows us how to be human. Emerging churches adopt his encounter with culture as their own…
When the church looks like the surrounding culture, doesn’t it lose its identity?
Actually the church loses its identity when it doesn’t look like the culture. Let us explain a big word — incarnation….the church fails in its mission when the people in the culture need to change cultures to be a part of the church. Now, the church will always be different, but hopefully for other reasons than because it is culturally out of synch…
Some of those you interviewed described themselves as post-Christian. Can you explain that?
They want Jesus but they do not ‘own’ all of church history as their own. They abandon the religion of Christianity, much of which does not seem like Jesus to them….
Some of these commmunities do not have a meeting. This seems like the Jesus people movement of the sixties. Back to communes?
Well, yes, and no. As we mentioned earlier, they do not see church as a meeting but simply as the people of God. This de-centers the church service. The critical activity is participating in community together. Of secondary importance is a particular corporate gathering.
Gone are the days of arguing against those other faiths who disagree? These churches will put to death a cottage industry of culture wars, why the others are wrong, etc. Will Josh McDowell be out of work?
We’ve seen some really good listeners as leaders of these churches. They admit that Christians have been wrong at times. While not rejecting their own faith tradition, they seek to embrace what they can from others.
You say serving the poor is central. Is this just the social gospel in another guise?
No, it really isn’t. Emerging Churches are not seeking specifically political solutions. They desire that their community embodies a caring apologetic. They would see the social-gospellers as equally guilty with the fundamentalists — objectifying the recipients. They want to invite the poor into their community.
You describe the transition from leader as CEO to leader as spiritual director. That is a pretty profound change.
Yes, it really is. The business model that runs the large corporation does not work inside a family. And that is the difference. These communities are more like families than they are large seeker churches.
You describe churches that meet in houses praying the Anglican Book of Prayer, while Anglican churches meet in pubs. Can you make any sense out of this?
There is a deep desire for spirituality to extend to all of life. Those who already embody a way of life outside church structures seek to create a historic spiritual rhythm. Those in high churches want to express their spiritual life in the physical world, as those divides no longer seem to make sense. It is really quite interesting…
Parting shots?
This is the most significant shift in church practice in at least fifty years, maybe much longer. We experienced a significant change in culture since the 1960s and the American church has lost numbers in droves. Emerging Churches are the first post-sixties Western church movement to address the entire cultural shift with the gospel of Jesus Christ — not looking to fight the culture, but to embrace it and transform it from within…
Thanks Eddie and Ryan for your insights…Once again, that is Emerging Churches: Creating Christianity in Postmodern Cultures…get it at your bookstore now…
Eddie, Ryan, thanks for leaving your brand new yacht (paid for by royalties I presume) to talk with us….
Our pleasure, we had to dock it eventually –
Next up, we’ll take your calls and address the rumors of the Men of Emergent Pinup Calendar…Once again, this is Larry King…
Technorati Tags: Emerging_Church
“Wow! That’s how we do our work overseas” shouted out a seasoned missionary to Southwestern Asia. He was responding to a talk I gave on the patterns of Emerging Churches in the West. For this missionary, stories from the Emerging Church embodied much of he was doing intuitively in his work. What resonated with him? A focus on Jesus stories, yep. All of life sacred, no split — yep. Church service replaced by hospitality as the primary connecting point, check. Dialog in humility, acknowledging errors, yes. Recognizing truths in the host culture and religion, yes. Holy Spirit was there before the missionary, yes. Indigenous local, almost pagan looking worship, yes. Leadership in teams, yes. Lots of prayer and spiritual activities outside the service, yes, yes, yes. This missionary does not need to be convinced that western categories do not make sense to his hearers. He does not need to be convinced that theology must deeply engage the cultures’ questions. The missionary’s immediate desire is to see a community formed around Scripture. Imparting 2000 years of church history and theology is not his first priority, and for some missionaries I have spoken to it is not a priority at all.
Sadly, I’ve seen missionaries grilled by Western theologians. Often there is a great misunderstanding between the two. Frequently, the missionary does not share what she or he learned on the field, simply to avoid these conflicts. I see the same misunderstandings between Emerging Church practitioners and various theologians as well. They talk past each other, inhabiting different worlds. Same problem as the overseas missionaries, different context. However, the reason we hear so much of the emerging church ‘heresies’ is that this new community is meeting across the street and not across the world.
Missionaries have experienced this sort of misunderstanding, and they understand what it looks like to live within two expressions of the same tradition. For that reason, they nod with understanding when I talk about the emerging church, a missional movement within popular/postmodern/urban cultures…I love talking to missionaries about the emerging church!
Technorati Tags: Emerging_Church, mission, Western Culture
A friend of mine (and former student) asked me recently about conversing with older people in his church about emerging practices. He asked if I had any guidance. I think he already had his answer. Conversations. I believe that many emerging church practitioners leave their church because the conversation has stopped. And sometimes it needs to, if it is toxic and brings death. However, we have glimmers of what can happen when the conversation continues. At Tribal Generation/St. Tom’s in Sheffield, UK, Eddie Gibbs and I saw “80-somethings” sitting around the dance floor supporting the club culture worship environment. How inspiring! Somehow, bridges were built and conversations continued in that community. These ‘gray-hairs’ (as they are called) understood that these younger people were faithful adherents to Christ within their culture. Someone translated these odd and peculiar practices to them, and the church conversed about the many ages in their midst. To the older people, what might have seemed like pagan idolatry in their understanding of world became faithful and contextual indigenous worship. Unfortunately, St. Tom’s is currently an exception, but it is a community that gives Eddie Gibbs and I hope for a multi-generational community that engages the future.
Technorati Tags: denominations, Emerging_Church, Leadership, worship
image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace