Does the Church Need to Rethink Leadership?

24 September, 2007 5:47 PM

In my last post I spoke about the transition time that we're going through as a community at LivingRoom with V and I moving on from the community at the end of this year (it's looking like we'll finish early in December or late in November).

While the transition has been something that we've been thinking about day in and day out for 8 months now it has been fascinating to see how different people have responded to the news in that last post.

Overwhelmingly people have been very encouraging. A few have emailed to ask questions and ask for clarification of rumors they'd heard (it's amazing (and a little concerning) what goes around - none of which has had any truth to them) but in general there has been some really wonderful feedback.

An Emerging Theme

One thing that I've found particularly interesting is the large number of people who have said that they resonate with the paragraph that I wrote about my 'sense of mission and ministry' in which I pointed back to my previous post on the topic of some of my own personal discovery and evolution in understanding of Ministry as being connected to work.

I've received email after email from people in paid ministry who have been coming to similar realizations and discoveries that perhaps God is 'calling' them to a different kind of 'ministry' outside that of paid ministry.

Some have told stories of how they have already made a similar transition to full time 'secular' (I dislike that word more and more) work, other have talked about moving into a part time paid ministry and part time work situation and others have expressed a desire to make the transition.

What interests me is that those emailing come from both emerging communities and more traditional churches.

My reactions to these emails is twofold:

1. I'm really excited and encouraged by it - It's affirming to know that I'm not alone in feeling the feelings that I've had this last year and to see that God's doing something amazing across the globe in his people who are discovering him and his mission in their work. I've heard some exciting stories of what's been going on for people and am increasingly energized by it.

2. I'm left with many questions - On the flip side of this I'm left wondering about 'church' and 'leadership'. While I'm certain that every pastor and minister around the world is not about to get up and leave their communities to go and get jobs outside the church - I do wonder whether we're seeing something happening here that will lead to us as Church to rethink how our communities are lead. I don't have the 'answers' to this - but it's a question we've certainly been pondering at LivingRoom of late and one that I'm beginning to see numerous other churches (particularly emerging ones) grappling with as their leaders feel the time is right to move on.

Sydney Emerging Church

19 June, 2006 3:53 PM

I'm regularly asked if I know of Emerging Churches in Sydney Australia and I regularly email people back saying that I don't really have any contact details for people but give a few names to track down.

Thanks to one of the readers of this blog I can now refer people to Small Boat Big Sea's web page. I know a few of the people at this Manly church and have heard great things about it.

Get in touch with them at SBBS.

If you know of other emerging churches in Sydney feel free to leave their details in comments below.

Measuring Emerging Church as a Trend

12 May, 2006 2:27 PM

Yesterday Google announced a new tool - Google Trends which is great for tracking how many people are searching Google for different keywords.

The term 'Emerging Church didn't really appear on Google's tracking until about three quarters through 2005. Following is a graph that shows it.

I'm unsure why there is such a leap at the start - I suspect that they just were not tracking it (other terms were tracked since the start of 2004).

So over the last 6 or so months the graph is pretty steady.

As an update to give some perspective of the numbers of people searching (Google trends just graphs it without measuring) I thought I'd compare 'emerging church' (blue) with 'Hillsong' (a large contemporary worship church here in Australia). The results are... interesting.... to say the least:

Also interesting with Google trends is that they plot where in the world people are searching for these terms from.

With Emerging church the biggest regions where people are searching for the term are (in order):

1. United States
2. Australia
3. Canada
4. United Kingdom

(no other countries registered high enough volumes of traffic to register)

With Hillsong the biggest regions of the world where people are searching for the term are:

1. Philippines
2. Australia
3. Singapore
4. South Africa
5. Indonesia
6. Malaysia
7. New Zealand
8. Brazil
9. Chile
10. Colombia

Neil Cole in Melbourne: 5th-7th April - Highly Recommended

29 March, 2006 8:41 PM

One of the best speakers I've ever heard in recent years on mission and church is Neil Cole who came and spoke at a Forge event a couple of years back.

He shared some of his story in one of the most humble and simple way. No big theories, no big words, no blog - just a guy doing what he felt God put before him to do in a way that had an incredible impact on the lives of many. Very inspiring.

Neil is back in Melbourne between 5 - 7 April for three days of teaching on 'How to Shape, Transition and Pioneer new ministries, missions, congregation and churches'.

I'm so so upset that I'm going to miss it (Forge seem to plan their events by when I'm out of town) but would highly recommend it to anyone who can make it.

The details are in the following pdf (click it to enlarge).

.

Brian McLaren in Melbourne

20 January, 2006 2:47 PM

For those of you in Melbourne who would like to hear Brian McLaren speak you might like to click on the following promotion for details of a night he's doing on 23 February with Forge.

Podcast - Core Values of the Red Network, a Melbourne Emerging Church

15 September, 2005 6:22 PM

Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback after my last post - a podcast/interview of me talking about the process of coming up with Core Values at LivingRoom.

As a follow up interview today I'm posting an interview that I did with Mark Sayers (the guy who interviewed me in the last one).

Mark is a church planter here in Melbourne - he's been a part of numerous emerging missional churches over the past few years but is currently working in a community called the 'Red Network' (formally South Melbourne Restoration Centre). I'll let him explain what it is in the interview that follows.

Mark is also one of the guys behind a website that many of you might remember a few years back called Phuture - a site that was one of the first sites going around exploring issues of emerging church, alternative worship, postmodern culture and how the church might interact with that (NB: Phuture is no longer online).

Lastly some of you will know Mark best as the author of the Ignition course which many of you have used in your communities.

Here's my interview with Mark (9MB - 20 minutes long).

Apologies for some of the audio problems but I've had difficulty in editing this interview so its a pretty raw quality.

Podcast - Core Values of LivingRoom

26 August, 2005 4:01 PM

I'd like to introduce my first podcast (or sorts) to LivingRoom. The MP3 file below (just under 4MB and 16 minutes long) is the first in a mini series of recordings that I've done with a good friend of mine - Mark Sayers.

Mark is a local guy that I've come to know and respect in the past few years that is involved in the starting of a new network of churches here in Melbourne called 'Red'. Red emerged out of a church named South Melbourne Restoration Centre (South Melbourne Church of Christ) which has had an amazing influence upon our city over the last decade or two under the leadership of Alan and Debra Hirsch.

Anyway - Mark's a brilliant thinker so when we stumbled upon the idea of recording some interviews with one another talking about our lessons of planting LivingRoom and Red I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

This first recording is Mark interviewing me about how the Core Values of LivingRoom. We explore a little of how we came up with our Values and how we reinforce them etc. In part II of this series I ask Mark some questions about Red's values. I hope you enjoy this - it's pretty basic in terms of quality but we'd like to do more of them if people find them useful. here it is:

Core Values of LivingRoom.mp3

Tension Points in the Emerging Church?

7 July, 2005 12:04 AM

Andrew Jones writes a thoughtful piece on 12 Tension Points in the Emerging Church. He writes:

'I have noticed there is still a lot of tension in the relationship between emerging church and the traditional church. Not as much as you think, but there is certainly a lot of heated discussion, mud-slinging and tabloid criticism. There is even the threat of physical abuse and organizations withdrawing favor, or young people leaving their denominations and starting fresh expressions of church without the blessing of their elders. Not good! The emerging church is called to be a reconciling community and part of that reconciliation must happen in the realm of communication.

Here are 12 tension points. I am sure there are many more, but these came to mind yesterday on a London train....'

Read more at TallSkinnyKiwi

I find Andrew's list quite helpful in describing many of the discussions on EC on blogs around the world. As I read it I found myself resonating - yet at a second and third read I began to ask myself if we at LivingRoom are experiencing any or all of these tensions.

I ended up having to answer the question 'no'.

Whilst at times there has been a little tension - it's actually been rare. Most of the critique that we've had as a group has either come via this blog from overseas (no offense to my OS readers - they've also been among our strongest encouragers) or as third hand criticism via word of mouth from largely nameless faces.

I'm not sure what this says. There could be a number of possibilities:

- Perhaps the Australian context is more accepting of new forms of church and mission?
- It could be that the EC has been pretty under the radar here?
- Maybe LivingRoom isn't an EC?
- Could it be that I'm blind, deaf and/or just plain ignoring the criticism?
- Maybe we're the perfect EC that's found all the answers?
- Perhaps we're so far off base that no one is bothering to critique us?
- Maybe we're reasonably good at explaining what and why we do what we do?
- Or perhaps we're just a wishy washy blend of EC and established church?

I'm not sure what it is (although am leaning towards it being an Aussie thing) - but I'm not too disturbed as I think that Emerging and Established churches have a lot to offer each other and many things to learn together

Questioning Church

25 May, 2005 1:46 PM

Over the past week I've had a number of interactions with Christians that have left me feeling a little downhearted.

In each case I've had people asking questions about LivingRoom and 'churches like it' in a way that was verging on attacking.

Now before I write any more - I will say that I don't mind questions about LivingRoom - in fact I welcome them. I actually believe that questions from outside our group are very helpful in keeping us on track and developing a community that doesn't evolve into something that is unaccountable and disconnected from the mainstream theologically.

However questions can be asked in a variety of ways - one of which is aggressively.

The actual questions asked were the normal ones that I tend to get presented with - things like:

• Why don't you sing?
• Why don't you meet on Sunday?
• Who is your pastor/minister? Why don't you have one?
• Why don't you have a Sunday School program for kids?
• Do you have a building? Do you want one? Why not?
• Why don't you have an evangelism program?
• How many converts have you had?

Again the questions are not bad ones - but the tone with which they were asked seemed to be getting at whether we were legitimately a 'real church' or not - and in most cases the implied undertone was that the answer to this question was 'no we were not'.

I don't particularly mind if people want to work out if we're really a church or not - its a good question and one we seek to answer at LivingRoom. We believe we are a church - we believe that we're not a perfect one, but we're on the road and seeking to know what God would have us be in our context and hopefully are responding to this.

These conversations have left me wondering what would happen if every church were asked questions like these.

I have to say that when I worked in my last church (300 or so people, meeting in a largely mainstream way) that i never got asked any of these questions - in fact I don't remember ever being challenged on our model of doing church at all.

The reason for this is obviously because the church I was in was largely doing what was generally accepted by most Christians as 'doing church'. They met on Sundays, they had a pastoral team, they met in a building and had offices, they had established programs, they had contemporary worship services etc.

This would be an opportune time for me to weigh into the 'established vs emerging church' debate and to deconstruct and critique the 'established/mainline' church. Perhaps in a previous time I would have done so - but in the past 12 months I'm realizing more and more that such a debate isn't really helpful. My personal opinion is that there is room for a multitude of models and expressions of church. My previous church is a legitimate expression of a Jesus centered faith community for the context that they are in. I doubt any of their members would say they are perfect - but they, like us, are seeking to hear God's voice and respond to it.

I guess what I'm saying here (in a round about - not very well thought out way) is two things:

1. When we ask questions about models/logistics/styles of doing Church - perhaps we should first consider the tone of voice and the agenda that we have in asking the questions. Neil Coles words of 'if you're going to base the bride you better be willing to face the bridegroom' ring in my ears. This is a message that both emerging and establish church people need to hear as they make comment on one another.

2. Perhaps with this attitude in mind the questions should be asked in a dialogical way. You see being asked such questions in a positive tone is helpful for me as someone involved in LivingRoom - it keeps challenging me back to the basics of who we are, what God is saying to us, what our culture is like etc. I think all churches should revisit some of these sorts of questions from time to time.

For example, perhaps it would be helpful for my previous church to be asked questions like I have been this week (not accusingly - but genuinely to assist in their discerning of God's voice:

• Why do you sing?
• Why do you meet on Sunday and not Tuesday for your main gatherings?
• Why do is so much of your giving tied up in pastors wages
• Why do you separate kids from parents each Sunday?
• Why do you have a building? How is it being used?
• Why do you have so many programs?
• How many converts have you had?

Please hear me as asking these questions in a loving way - I know that the answers can be legitimately answered - some of the answers will reconfirm the choices that this church has made - but perhaps some of them will challenge paradigms that need a challenge and perhaps would identify a new expression of what God might be wanting to do in that place.

Interested in others thoughts.

Are Emerging Church Blogs Getting Stale?

13 May, 2005 6:02 PM

Someone pointed me to a post written by Mark at the First Epistle of Mark titled Behold, I am making all things stale and boring - a critique/observation of the Emerging Church - or at least its blogs. You can probably tell that Mark is a little disalussioned by the EC blogging scene by his title - his post is worth a read. I both resonated with it and reacted against it a little. Here is the comment I left on his blog which has some of my initial thoughts:

Good post and a topic I've written on from time to time.

I personally read a lot less blogs on the topic of Emerging Church (and have written on the topic myself less) these days for a combination of reasons:

1. I have less time
2. a little frustration (similar to yours) of an insular group talking about the same stuff
3. perhaps less need to keep talking and a desire to start doing more
4. I've felt a nudging from God to get involved in the wider blogging community and be a little more outward focused in my blogging.

Having said this - I still value EC blogs (despite them sometimes going in circles a bit). The reason I value them is on a number of fronts:

1. They are often written by people early on in their EC journey and are a thinking out loud, learning experience - testing ideas, learning from each other, experimenting with theories and even testing them in practice. This is vital for their own personal walk and the communities that they are a part of.

2. They are part of an important dialogue in the wider church. Whilst you and I may have heard all the arguments, been convinced (or not convinced) and perhaps are thirsting for something new - so many others have not. I spent a day today with 100 or so church people, many of whom have not heard of the EC movement (is that what it is) and who were incredibly stimulated and moved by what they heard about some very very basic Emerging Church thought from one of the EC Bloggers that many look to as quite prominent. I didn't hear anything new (although it did remind me of a few things that I'd pushed aside) but the basics were rich for most in the room. I wonder if this is true for the EC blogging community also which I believe plays an important role in awakening a conversation that needs to happen in the wider church today.

I also have been challenged recently by the idea of 'new' and our need for it in society. You write no one writes anything 'new' - I wonder if anyone ever did. Most conversations in all areas of the church today are reshapings of previous conversations.

I can't remember where I heard this - but in a book I've read in the last year or two I was challenged to think about the growing need that western culture has for 'new things' or 'novelty'. In previous generations and centuries the main 'needs' were for food, shelter, relationship etc. Today we live in a world where we 'need' new things. The latest gadget, car, book, idea, theory, paradigm etc. Whilst I don't have anything against new things - I wonder how healthy this obsession is with new/novelty and whether the church buys into it.

I too thirst for a new conversation - but perhaps God's calling us into an ancient discussion. I don't know - maybe I'm wrong - but I'm going to sit with that for a while.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not having a go at you Mark - I resonate with your post - but I guess I'm also seeing the value in the EC blogging scene.

Lastly I'll point you to an interesting post by Anil Dash - one of the people behind the MovableType and Typepad blogging systems who wrote an interesting piece on the blogging cycle and some of the observations that he's made about a variety of blogging communities. Perhaps what you're describing is part of one of the steps that he writes about.

The Out of Bounds Church Review

1 May, 2005 5:24 PM

Darren (the other one) is writing a chapter by chapter review of Steve Taylor's Out of Bounds Church. He's written 5 chapters so far. Looking forward to getting my hands on my own copy next week at the Melbourne book launch.

book launch - out of bounds Church

28 April, 2005 10:59 AM

I'm looking forward to this upcoming event here in Melbourne. It'll be a great night and something worth adding to your diary as Steve's a wise man who I respect greatly even though I've only spent a short hour with over a beer one time.

'On Wednesday 11th May at 7.30pm, Northern Community Church of Christ and Forge are launching Steve Taylor’s book - Out of Bounds Church. This is an event not to be missed if you are in the vicinity of Melbourne.'

Read more at book launch - out of bounds Church

Emergent - Key Issues

26 April, 2005 12:23 PM

Stephen Said has some good discussion going on at his blog about some of the key issues that are facing the Emerging Church - he'd like your thoughts. His initial post is Emergent - Who's doing what... and the follow up one with a list of issues that have been submitted is Emergent - Issue from the street. This issues list is quite good:

• Effective Mission/Faithsharing
• Sustainability (in terms of employment, paying the bills etc)
• Sustainability in terms of spirituality.
• Discipleship in a po-mo consumer based context (including a comnsumer based Christian context).
• Community building and development.
• Theologising.
• Thinking/Imagination
• Relating to the traditional/conventional church

Head over and add to is in Stephen's comments section.

Multi-congregational?

18 March, 2005 4:36 PM

Phil over at Signposts is looking for examples of Multi Congregational Churches and would like your help:

'I am wondering if you are in a Church that you would consider to be multi-congregational? Or maybe you know a Church that is multi-congregational? I want to compile a list of Churches who are attempting to have more than one congregation. In particular, I am keen to find out Churches who are operating emerging church like congregations alongside established congregations.

So, what do I mean by multi-congregational? Well, I don’t mean Churches that have multiple worship services but rather Churches who have taken seriously the idea that a Church can have people who are meeting at different times, in different places, in different styles etc. Clear as mud?'

Head over there if you can contribute to his search!

A short history and explanation of the wider “emerging church”

22 February, 2005 9:20 AM

Alan Creech did it again - he put into words (in a pretty helpful way) some of the stuff I'd been trying to explain to someone just yesterday. Head over to Next Wave's article - What I am and what I'm not - or a short history and explanation of the wider “emerging church” - the title says it all....

'you've got to understand that many of us have been doing what we're doing, in some form, for much longer than the term emerging church has even existed. Some of us have even been doing something “different” (at least different from the common norm) for longer than we have even known what the word “postmodern” means! Wow. OK, this is why it's all very hard to define and pin down. It's not like we all heard of this cool new thing, left our old stuffy churches and joined a new club. No, we didn't do that. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm telling you, that's not what this phenomenon is all about.'

Forge Intensive - Feb 05

19 February, 2005 4:48 PM

I'm currently at the Forge Intensive and enjoying the interaction with some great people thinking through subjects around Mission, Christology, Culture etc.

I won't blog about it all because Phil has been doing a great job of it over at Signposts in his this category of his blog.

Wish you were here.

Those of you in Melbourne can join us tonight at 8pm to here a session with Mike Frost or tomorrow night (Sunday) at 7pm for an alt worship reflective gathering. Its at 81 High St Preston.

Forge Intensive this weekend!

16 February, 2005 5:51 AM

Just a reminder for those of you in Melbourne/Victoria who might like to come along to Forge this coming weekend. There are still places available and a couple of ways you can be involved either by coming along for the whole weekend (starting Friday night and ending Sunday night) or by just coming along to one of the three open nights.

Those coming for the whole weekend will hear Mike Frost, Alan Hirsch, Mark Sayers, Deb Hirsch and plenty of stories from different practitioners doing missional church. There will also be some practical field trip like options on Sunday afternoon.

Those just coming in the evenings will hear Mike Frost both Friday and Saturday nights and can participate in an Alt Worship reflective service on Sunday night.

Feel free to bring others along.

The weekend will be held at Northern Community Church of Christ in Preston. There is some cost to the weekend but we've tried to keep it low by encouraging participants to BYO meals or buy them at local cafes. Let me know if you want more information.

Update: - Prices are $70 for workers and $50 for students for the whole weekend. Open nights are $15 for students and $25 for workers (not including Sunday which I think is free, we'll be taking an offering for the Tsunami appeal though this night).

My Emerging Church Presentation

13 February, 2005 10:34 PM

Last week I mentioned that I was putting together a presentation (job interview) on my 'hopes and dreams for the emerging church' and 'how denominations might resource the emerging church'. A number of people have asked how that went via email. This is actually something I've been wondering about too - until yesterday when I got an email yesterday notifying me that two of us who applied for the positions have been appointed to do the research position. My only sadness is that I won't have a chance to work with the other two presenters as I found all the others ideas really stimulating.

I'm looking forward to the next 6 months of work on this and will no doubt speak more about it on the blog as it all unfolds.

I've put a little movie file of the presentation I did above. It may not make a lot of sense on its own so I'll add some commentary of each slide below. The presentation was only 5 minutes so I felt it was very 'light' and had loads of broad brushstrokes.

The file is 1.8MB - click it to load it up and when its fully loaded you can go through the slides simply by clicking the frame to forward through them or by using your arrow keys to go forwards or backwards through the presentation (this may work differently depending upon your browser). I hope it works for you. Let me know. Anyway - here it is.

Dreams and Hopes

• A United Church - my dreams and hopes for the Emerging church are actually my dreams and hopes for the Church in general. Whilst I am fine with using the name 'Emerging Church' I do worry that in doing so and in all the talk about it that we see in books, online, in conferences that it is being presented as THE alternative to church and as THE answer to some of the pressures that the church currently face. I love some of the fresh things that are emerging at the moment in Christian communities around the world but my dream and hope is that they do not set themselves up as separate from the rest of the church but that whilst they are different that the line between Emerging and Established church is somewhat blurry. I dream of a United Church.
• A Church with Flavours - Sitting in Brunswick St a few weeks ago on a hot day I was enjoying an icecream cone with numerous flavours on it. As I sat and ate it and enjoyed the variety of tastes in one snack I watched the many different flavours of people that wandered past me in 15 minutes. I began to reflect upon the flavoursome city that we live in - Melbourne is both ethnically diverse and sub-culturally diverse - but are these flavours represented in the church going population? I suspect that studies will show that we're a somewhat Vanilla flavoured church - I dream of a Church with Flavours.
• A Church that Dreams - As I look back over Church history I see that many of the times of richness and change come about when individuals and small groups of people dare to dream of something new and different - when they dare to dream of new ways of connecting with the world around us. I've had dreams of how church can be for many years but its only been in the last few that I've had contact with church leaders who have given me permission to think outside the box and to dream. I suspect that sitting in the pews of many of our churches are some amazing dreams in embryonic form - I dream of a Church that encourages Dreaming.
• A Church that Experiments - Dreaming is one thing but actually putting flesh upon the ideas is another. You can have all the dreams in the world but unless you follow some of them you'll only ever be a 'dreamer'. The LivingRoom and the other 30 or so Emerging Churches we know of here in Melbourne have only ever come to be a reality because people have decided to take the ideas, theories and dreams and test them. Sometimes experiments fail, sometimes they succeed but no matter what the result something is learnt through the process. I dream of a Church that Experiments.
• A Spirited Church - Whilst I have not seen any examples of it yet one of the dangers of being involved in dreaming, experimental churches that try to connect with culture is that they could lose some of their focus upon the person of Jesus. I will only speak from my personal experience here - but to be honest I can see how amidst the creativity, ideas and fun (it is often a lot fun) of it all that it would be possible to lose site of the purpose of it all - to let go of some of the core beliefs and practices that have made the Church what it is since its inception. I dream of a Church that continues to worship, pray and connect with Jesus.
• A Church that Cares - Similarly amidst the newness, experimenting and everything else that seems new and fresh in the Emerging Church I can see that it would be easy to loose site of the call of Jesus to be the light and the salt of the world - to lose site of the outward focus of faith - to lose of the call to serve, the call to care and the call to the margins of our society. Perhaps this is a concern that I have that is broader than the EC but for the whole church. So many of us (and I'm one of us) struggle to get out of our comfort zones and actually learn what it is to Love our Neighbour. I dream of a Church that exists as much for those who are not in it as for those who are.
• A Church that Creates - I long for the day where creativity around Christian Communities is not just expressed through a weekly 30 minute time of singing. I believe in a God who is a Creator and I suspect that he's calling for us to join him in the Creating process. For too long 'creation' has been limited or kept out of church - I dream of a Church that releases its people to Creativity.
• A Church that Connects - Lets return to one of my earlier points - I dream of a church with flavours. Nice idea and one that I long for. But the reality of it is that I suspect that if this dream is to come to pass that we are going to have to learn how to connect with people again. I think most people I've been involved with in churches over the years would agree with and know missional theory pretty well. They don't need to be convinced about mission - rather they are either so so immersed in Church culture that they do not know any non church going people or they are petrified of building deep relationships with people around them. I suspect that with the rapid change of culture around us that we've lost the art of connection and of relationships - without this what hope do we have of being a church of Flavours? I dream of a Church that Connects.

Denominations and the Emerging Church

I was asked to present on how the denominations could help resource, sustain and support the Emerging Church. I started by saying that everything I had to say was a suspicion and that I didn't believe in a one size fits all approach.

• Emerging Church Toolbox - One of the wonderful things about the emerging church scene here in Melbourne is that every community that I've happened upon brings a unique and different approach to doing church - I guess this goes to the very heart of what the EC is and is something we often celebrate. As a result of this any interaction between the EC and denominations needs to be a tailored approach. I suggested instead of building a one size fits all strategy for planting and supporting ECs perhaps an EC toolbox approach could be developed where different 'tools' could be more appropriate to different communities at different times. I gave some examples of such 'tools' as being:

  - training and coaching - this could range from the informal to the formal on a whole variety of topics and areas
  - support and accountability - again this could take on a variety of levels and forms
  - networking - connecting leaders and groups with others that they could be supported and encouraged by
  - logistical support - how to open a bank account, insurance etc
  - money and resources - some might need wages, buildings, people etc
  - introductions and protection - with other local groups and networks

• The Gardener - I used a metaphor of a gardener creating an environment for growth rather than making trees, plants etc. From what I've observed of the Emerging Church they don't tend to respond well to being built - rather they evolve, grow.....hmmm....emerge.
• Permission and Space Creation - In some ways this is similar to the last point - I reflected upon some of the experience that I've had with our denomination in planting LivingRoom - really they heard my dream and created a space for us to give it a go by giving us a grant to get things going and affirming what we are doing. For other groups this 'space creation' may be more of a physical space than others.
• Cheer - Again with LivingRoom our denomination has cheered us along again and again. Many many times I've heard our denominational leaders 'talking up' the different emerging missional communities that they see springing up in our denominations. This both inspires and affirms those of us involved but also makes it easier for us to explain and legitimate what we do.
• Normalise - Cheering is great but there is also a need to normalise the EC. One of the critiques of EC that I'm seeing more and more is that its just the latest, trendy, cool thing for cool people living in hip parts of the city. I wonder if this comes from some of the 'spin' and hype that has at times been ascribed to some of the communities talking this language. I can only talk for my community and myself but from my perspective we're just a normal group of people living in a pretty middle class suburb in Melbourne trying to make sense of life, faith and what it is to be followers of Jesus. We believe pretty much the same things as most other churches I've been a part of and are just trying to do it in a relevant way for the culture we're in. I think denominations can be involved in both cheering and normalising - but it can be a fine line to walk.
• Lessons from bike Riding - I finished with another metaphor - this time that of a parent helping a child learn to ride a bike. Its not a perfect analogy (I'm not big on the paternal approach to starting EC's) but talked about how teaching bike riding has different stages where different things are needed. At times you need to be pretty hands on (do the balancing, steering and momentum making), other times its more about running beside with an encouraging hand on the shoulder, other times its about hands on for a few seconds and then hands off before a few more seconds of hands on, other times you let go completely and help pick up the child after a crash before encouraging them to ride again - other times its about letting go and watching them ride off with mixed feelings of elation at a new freedom but also worried about the risk involved. Depending upon the community a different approach will be needed at different times for new churches - sometimes its a fine line but I do believe that the denominations can both offer a lot to the EC but also receive a lot.

By no means am I presenting the above as the a definitive strategy - I only had 5 minutes to talk - but it is a response that is largely out of my own experience. I'm looking forward to being a part of the research ahead which will hopefully flesh out the topic some more.

A Taste of Liquid

10 February, 2005 12:12 AM

Today was 'A Taste of Liquid', a mini conference here in Melbourne exploring 'Culture, Spirituality and Justice'. As someone on the organising group it was a pretty long and tiring day but also one that I find myself looking back on now with some real satisfaction.

This afternoon we had around 70 people show up for a time of a panel discussion (on the three topics above), an interactive time of unpacking some of the ideas raised in the panel and quite a bit of time of networking and meeting others in the extended network of communities exploring emerging missional church around Melbourne.

Tonight was a larger group who experienced a session of short stories from 12 or so people from different emerging/missional communities around Melbourne. This time was filled with the stories of some pretty diverse and creative examples of communities from around the city - some of which I'd not heard of before.

After this time we rotated through three different worship/reflective experiences that focused upon Justice (it was a multimedia presentation using music and imagery), Culture (an interactive bible exploration using fuzzy logic) and Spirituality (a meditative reflection on a bible passage, poem and silence).

I really enjoyed the day. There were things we will no doubt do a little differently next time, but overall it was a positive experience for most who attended judging by the reactions afterwards.

I especially enjoyed meeting a number of this blog's readers and some fellow bloggers that I've never met before. I was actually surprised that when we put up a list for bloggers to put their URLS on that around 15 or so links appeared almost mysteriously during the afternoon and evening (Christop has a full list of bloggers who were in attendance here).

So a good day - but one that left me rather weary so its time to find my way to bed.

Hopes and Dreams for the Emerging Church

4 February, 2005 12:33 AM

The other Darren just posted a private conversation that I had with him on MSN....umarrrrr!!!! (will have to watch what I say in future)... But its ok because I was about to post it myself...

I said a couple of days ago that I was preparing a presentation (its sort of a job interview) on Emerging Church and Denominations. I'm still working on that (and would value any insights that you might have) - but the other part of the presentation is on 'What is your Dream for the Emerging church?'

The other Darren answered the question by saying:

'that it stops hiding behind the emerging label and takes on the reality that it is The Church'

That is an answer that resonates with me. Its actually something I've been pondering all day as I've done a bit of preparation for my presentation. I agree with Darren. Whilst I don't mind the term EC (and think its useful to have a term to describe what is happening) I have worried about its continued and constant use (I'm as guilty as the next person) in the past few months/years.

My worry with the term is that in continuing to distinguish what we do as 'Emerging/Emergent/Organic/Simple/Liquid/New/Post Modern...(insert favorite term here)' that we might actually be setting ourselves up for a fall.

Don't get me wrong - I think there definitely is something going on in the lives of individuals, communities and even denominations around the world, something is 'emerging' - but in defining ourselves constantly in this way I wonder if we alienate ourselves from the rest of the Body of Christ that we are called to be. I've heard an increased amount of rumblings about the EC in the local scene here in Melbourne recently and wonder if some of it comes as a result of us setting ourselves up as somewhat different or separate from the Church.

I'm not suggesting that we don't use the word any more - but rather I'm feeling a growing urge to build relationships with the wider Church community and to be more aware of the consequences of our choice of language and labels.

My dream or hope is not for the Emerging Church - rather it is for the Church. I'll leave it at that for the moment (stay tuned for the rest of my presentation next week) but that is where I'm going to start. I can't wait for the day (and I hope that it will come) where the line between 'Emerging' and 'Mainline' or 'Traditional' church is blurry and where such blurriness doesn't matter.

So what do you think? What do you think about the term Emerging Church? What are your Hopes and Dreams for the EC?

Children in Emerging Church

3 February, 2005 3:01 PM

Barb points to this helpful article on Children and the Emerging Church which I'm going to keep on hand to point people to when I get asked about the topic (every few weeks it seems). It is written by one of my heroes - Neil Cole. He writes:

'In order to have a spontaneous church multiplication movement, we must not confine expansion with controls. For this reason, I don’t recommend that there is only one way to take care of kids in a simple church. In fact, we usually give two or three options and let churches decide for themselves. My experience shows, however, that there are better ways than others. Integration in church life has proven more powerful than segregation based on age....'

I think Neil is onto something here - we have 5 kids that come to LivingRoom from time to time and its something that has been on my mind for a while now. We talked again last night in our planning time about the idea of integration with kids and came to a decision that to do a specific kids ministry/Sunday School type thing was not where we were at. Instead for us we want to be very very intentional about our relationships with our kids - love them and make a real effort to engage them over our meal and community time. We make a conscious effort to do all age friendly activities from time to time but at other times are fine with the idea of the kids going off by themselves to have a play and be themselves with one another while we do what we do. One of the insightful comments a parent made last night was that if we work on the relationship that the kids will want to stay with us, even when we 'talk adult' together and that this is probably the best integration we can do.

Emerging Church Participants and the Local Church

17 January, 2005 5:18 PM

Garth is wondering 'how many of those who consider themselves part of the EC still worship or are attached to their local church. How many have started something new and no longer attend the 'structured' church? '

Vote here

Melbourne Emerging Churches

17 January, 2005 12:56 PM

Every week I get an email from a reader of my Blog that goes something like this:

'Dear Darren,

My name is (insert name here) and I am very interested in what you are doing with LivingRoom. I have recently been thinking about church and am coming to a place where I feel it is time to find a church like yours to become a part of and explore some of the themes that you explore.

I live in (insert part of Melbourne that is NOT near LivingRoom) and was wondering if you know of other churches that are like yours in terms of style, values, outlook etc. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks - (insert name here).'

I love these emails because it confirms the suspicion that so many people are arriving at similar conclusions about church but it also leaves me wondering how to respond. I know of a number of 'emerging, simple, organic, post modern, liquid churches' around Melbourne but I know there are more.

Just yesterday I met a guy at Soul Survivor who is part of a movement of house churches in the West of Melbourne that I'd never heard of before (called 'West Church') - hi Nathan by the way!

So - I thought maybe its time I began a bit of a list of Melbourne Emerging Churches. I'll let you decide what is and isn't an Emerging Church and invite you to submit the details of any that you know or are apart of below in comments. Please include:

- Name of group (if you have one)
- Region of Melbourne that it is from
- A couple of sentences that describe it
- A website link and/or some way of contacting the group (email, address, phone - whatever works for you)

Hopefully this will be a useful resource.

Here are some to start the list off of some of those that I'm familiar with. Please don't be offended if I havn't mentioned yours yet - these were just some I had websites handy for. I didn't want to add one's without websites because I know some are not as public as others and may not want the exposure at the moment. More than happy to add others with or without websites - submit them in comments:

Name: LivingRoom
Region: Inner North - from Fitzroy, to Brunswick, to Northcote and Thornbury.
Description: Meets in the homes of its members on Wednesday nights for a meal, discussion, community building and reflections. Informal, small and friendly.
Contact: Email Darren

Name: Northern Community Church of Christ
Region: North - Preston, Northcote etc
Description: - NCCC is an interesting church with multiple congregations that meet in a number of locations targeting different groups of people in culturally appropriate ways.
Contact: contact details

Name: The Junction
Region: Outer South East including Berwick
Description: A missional community made up of a number of smaller primary communities meeting in homes, hotels and other public spaces.
Contact: Contact Details

Name: Solace
Region: North/East - from Kew to Northcote and many places between!
Description: Solace meet in a number of formats at a number of times during the week. Contemplative and Creative.
Contact: Contact Details

Name: Cafe Church
Region: Meet at Babel Cafe in Brunswick St Fitzroy on Tuesdays.
Description: Cafechurch is about a group of christians who want to enjoy church and each other through the challenge of community. We meet weekly in a cafe where we share our faith in a forum that is informal and interactive.
Contact: Contact People

Name:
Region:
Description:
Contact:

Name:
Region:
Description:
Contact:

Liquid Conference Put on Ice

13 January, 2005 9:25 PM

Unfortunately due to lack of numbers we've put the Liquid Conference on ice until some point in the future.

Instead of the full three day conference that we were planning we will be running a more informal, cheaper afternoon and evening event on 9 Wednesday February. The time will start at 2pm at Northern Community Church of Christ (as previously planned) and will include a few short presentations, some free flowing discussion and lots of interaction around issues of:

- Engaging culture & community
- Spiritual formation & discipleship
- Compassionate living & social justice

In the evening (6pm for dinner til 9pm) we'll be opening things up and inviting some of the emerging churches and communities from around Melbourne to come together for a time of story telling, alternative worship and reflection.

We're suggesting a donation of $20 if you're coming for the whole time or $10 if you come for one or the other session (ie afternoon or evening). If you'd like to have some pizza with us bring an extra $5.

I'm sorry to those who had planned to come to a three day conference - especially those who are coming from overseas - a combination of a hard time of year, other competing conferences and other circumstances have made it difficult - but we hope you can still come and be a part of this day together.

16 Church Planting Lessons

12 January, 2005 12:49 PM

Lucas also asked in his email for my thoughts on planting a house church (or a 'simple church' as they prefer to call it). I too resist the 'house church label' - we don't refer to ourselves in that way (see some of my grappling with what to call ourselves at Sexy House Churches, Emerging, House, Cafe, Organic, Post-Modern? and Boxable Church).

My thoughts or advice or lessons on Church Planting are only given hesitantly as they are OUR lessons. 'Ours' not because we own them or have a patent pending but because they are what we've learnt in our context in the period of time that we've been experimenting. They may or may not be universal lessons applicable to all. I've previously written quite a few of these 'lessons' and rather than rehashing them all here I thought I'd just provide some links and headings:

The first ten lessons were written after one year of being established. They were perhaps a little more 'theoretical' than the last five. We were very much testing and experimenting in the first year.

- Church Planting Lessons - Part A

1. Get your DNA right

- Church Planting Lessons - Part B

2. Make Mission Central
3. Read Shaping of Things to Come

- Church Planting Lessons - Part C

4. Multiplication rather than Addition
5. Make it Simple and Replica-table

- Church Planting Lessons - Part D

6. Incarnation
7. Sending vs Attractional

- Church Planting Lessons - Part E - 8. Participation is Key and 9. Community is Central

8. Participation is Key
9. Community is Central

- Church Planting Lessons - Part F

10. Have Fun

If that wasn't enough I also wrote More Church Planting Lessons from the LivingRoom after another 6 months of meeting. These tips were perhaps a little more out of our experience. They are:

11. Go Slow
12. Make it as connected as possible to people's real lives
13. Don't just meet in Houses
14. Don't let Church Dominate Life
15. Be Shaped by the Outsider

I'm sure there will be 'even more Church Planting lessons' that I'll write at some stage after a little more reflection but this will have to do for the time being. I will however add one more brief one:

16. Be careful what you blog about - whilst blogging is a wonderful tool for communication, learning and networking it can also be used inappropriately. It might be worth having a brief conversation with your group as to what you can and can't blog about.
- I personally have chosen not to identify by names people in our group.
- I have posted a few photos from time to time but limit this. I also choose not to blog about decisions we're making in much detail until they have been made.
- I do not blog about our disagreements or about what individuals said unless I get permission first.

Whilst I want to be transparent with the world through this blog about who LivingRoom is - there is nothing to hide - I also want to keep in mind that our community is made up of real people who are entitled to privacy and a safe space to express themselves and their journeys. They are also entitled to not have our dirty laundry (not that there is much) aired publicly. This is just my position - I know other bloggers have taken different approaches - some it has worked out for, others it has caused some massive problems for. Just be careful.

I'm interested to hear your 'lessons' or advice to a group of people just starting out.

The 'Rules' of Church

27 December, 2004 9:07 AM

Darren (the other one - or one of them) has written a post titled Rules were made to be broken about a workshop he's running. He's asking readers to name some of the 'Rules' of Church:

'This made me wonder, what would those of you in the blogosphere list as “Rules of Church?” Those in the EC scnene have been redefining the “rules” for quite some time and I was wondering if there was anyone out there paying attention to my new blog who might be interested in listing some of their “rules” and some of the “old rules” of Church.

Some of the “rules” that I think have been dismantled include:

- A church doesn’t not look like a coffee shop
- A dance party is outreach, not Church
- Music in the Church should be played on an organ
- Uncomfortable pews are a necessary part of Church
- There is one definition of Church
- The minister preaches, I listen

Of course, there are hundreds more, but I wonder what your old rules were…'

Head over and add your 'rules' to his list.

Emerging Church Question from Maryam

21 December, 2004 3:53 PM

Maryam over at A Dervish's Du`a has posted some excellent questions and reflections on the Emerging Church. The cool thing is that she's not only asking questions from outside the Emerging Church but also outside the Church. As a Muslim woman who we've actually had along to share with us at LivingRoom I'm very interested in her observations and thoughts. She writes:

'However, it struck me that EC would be difficult to 'enter' as a non-church-goer or non-Christian just interested in checking things out. You know... tasting the aperitifs before comitting to the twelve-course meal. Sometimes it takes quite a few aperitifs before you're ready for the roast beef and yorkshire pud, so how do you approach that in your EC congregations?

The weekly gathering I attended had a group of extremely and genuinely warm and welcoming people, but of course with a small group of a dozen or so people in someone's home, a newcomer stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. There is no mouthing along with the hymns up the back at EC!!

Also, how do you deal with the 'member' / 'non-member' / 'official status' / 'you have to join up to be a part of it' / 'you have to believe X theological creed' etc. issue? Read more at A Dervish's Du`a': Emerging Church Question

So where does one start in answering those questions. Here are a few reflections:

1. I've felt similar feelings as I've observed LivingRoom and othe ECs.

2. Whilst I've felt similar things I've reminded myself that LivingRoom has not set up to grow LivingRoom. Our purpose is not to build our community in numbers, or even 'the Church's' numbers - rather we exist to build 'the Kingdom of God'. Whilst this distinction doesn't fully answer Maryam's questions it is an important distinction to make. In previous church circumstances I think the mindset was often to get people along to church, to make it as accessible as possible to people, to break down the barriers for people to come in and belong so that they could become one of us. With LivingRoom we actually have in our DNA that we are not as interested in building our numbers by getting people to come in to us - but we're more interested in us going out and joining God in his work in the world.

3. Having said this there does sometimes come a time when people want to come to LivingRoom - both people who have church experience and people who do not. On most occasions that this has happened so far these people come along on a Wednesday night out of some sort of relationship with a LivingRoom participant. Its not a rule - just the way it happens. Whilst this also doesn't completely answer Maryam's question I find that it does help people make the transition. Very rarely have we had total strangers rock up to LivingRoom - usually there is at least one meeting with people first - if not many months or years of relationship with people. Often they've already met a number of the group before coming.

4. Despite all this wonderful theory I still know that the format of how we choose to meet (and its just one way of many within the Emerging Church) CAN be a little (or a lot) threatening to some people. This is due to our size, our meeting in a private home, the format of our meetings (interactive, sitting in a circle) etc. On the flip side this format and style also makes things more accessible for other types of people. I guess what I'm coming to believing is that Church should take a variety of forms - each with its own strengths and weaknesses in connecting with different types of people.

Anyway - those are some of my reflections - wondering what others think? Leave your comments over at Maryams.

Sexual Misconduct in the Emerging Church

30 November, 2004 12:21 AM

Today was the first day of the last Forge intensive for the year - a week of learning, dreaming, sharing, networking and imagining what the church, mission and Christian spirituality might look like in our different cultural positions. A lot of Melbourne's emerging church scene comes out over the week to catch up and engage with one another. This intensive is on the topic of 'Leadership'.

Today we had a number of good sessions. One in particular remains in my mind tonight as I consider ending my day and heading to bed. I thought I'd mention it here in an attempt to get it out of my head before I attempt sleep....

Anne Wilkinson-Hayes spoke today about Sexual Misconduct/Abuse - particularly of leaders. Here in Australia (and around the world) over the past few years there have been a number of high profile cases where ministers/pastors have been accused of and found guilty of a variety of different sexual misconduct actions. All that I am aware of have arisen in traditional or mainline churches....

Anne talked today about how this is a topic that the Emerging Church especially needs to ponder and grapple with. Sexual misconduct by leaders is not just an issue for larger mainline churches - in some ways the emerging church might even be more vulnerable due factors including (and I'm generalizing here):

- lack of accountability to outside groups/denominations.
- lack of policy and/or thought through strategies in some of these areas due to the informality or lack of resources of groups
- decentralized leadership that often is a little chaotic
- lack of training in these areas due to a laity leadership model
- smallness of groups which can lead to real relational intimacy
- gender imbalances in groups sometimes make it difficult to follow policies

These were just a few of the reasons why the EC might be more vulnerable in this area. Again they are gross generalizations and not applicable to every EC - however even if none of them apply - I still see this as an important issue to grapple with and one in which I'm yet to see any real work or discussion had in EC circles that I have something to do with. I'm wondering if others have anything to share in terms of resources - ideas - suggestions on how you tackle this area as Emerging Churches. Interested in your thoughts...

Emerging Worship with Mark Pierson

12 November, 2004 12:20 PM

Last night we had the Emerging Worship Night with Mark Pierson at Forge. It was a good night with about 40 in attendance (the rain kept people away at bit).

I really enjoy listening to Mark - as someone who has been involved in innovative church contexts for years longer than myself its very encouraging to hear his stories and experience.

One of the things that sticks in my mind was some of his opening remarks about intuition. He talked about how most of what he did at Cityside was done out of his intuitive nature and not out of books, blogs, theoretical or strategic thinking. This was personally a very encouraging thing for me to hear as I do not see myself as a deep thinker - and work out of that place predominantly also. Phew - I'm not alone.

He also talked a lot about the value of participation that they have at Cityside - something that I noticed about the place on our recent visit. It was great to simply hear the story/ies of Cityside and some of the behind the scenes workings having had so vivid memories of being there.

I love the balance that they have between a structured liturgy and an 'anything goes' approach. Skeletally they are the same each Sunday in terms of liturgy, but because anyone can do anything (within the outlined elements) they can end up with radically different gatherings from week to week.

I also resonated with his talking about how anyone can initiate anything when it comes to mission. Cityside as such doesn't have 'mission projects or programs'. They support mission projects of its members but the primary responsibility and authority lies with the members. This is an approach that sounds rather chaotic and scary - but one which I have seen work very successfully in a number of places over the years.

Mark's concept of a 'Worship Curator' is one I'm familiar with from previous reading and one which has been very formative for me over the years. It was nice to hear him speak about it in person.

I valued the way Mark shares - he is very humble and not pushy. He does not present anything as a model but rather encouraged those there to hear the principles he was speaking about. All in all it was a very encouraging night and one that I'm sure will continue to impact my thinking for many years. Of course the other exciting thing is that Mark now is based in Melbourne and so the possibilities of increased relationship and sharing will no doubt arise over time.

How do you Engage with the Emerging Church?

8 November, 2004 9:14 AM

Life just got busy. Sorry for the lack of action on this blog this week - its one of those weeks where everything is landing on my lap at once. Its all good stuff - there's just a lot of it.

Anyway - question for you emerging church bods out there.

I've been asked to speak tomorrow to an Aussie missions agency about Emerging Church. To give them a bit of a run down on what its all about - but also to share with them as to how they might better connect and partner with it.

The exciting thing for me is that I think a relationship between a mission agency like this one (who is doing some cutting edge stuff in third world contexts) could be a very dynamic and two way one.

I think they could teach us a lot about mission, culture, incarnation etc. After all - most of the principles that many of us use in mission are really taken from the lessons learned in overseas mission. I think that the Emerging Church could also offer back a lot of lessons, creativity, resources and people. Its a worthwhile conversation.

The challenge for groups like them is that many of us Emerging church types are suspicious of institutions, a little skeptical about some of the things that have been done over the years by 'mission organizations' and are often so unstructured and 'liquid' that we are hard to engage if you're a structured and highly organized body.

So - the question I have (and it is a little obscure) - how would you suggest an organization like this fosters relationships with the Emerging Church? What barriers might you see? What ways forward might there be?

Update: unfortunately comments are not working at the moment if you leave a URL. (its my spam protector doing a bit too good a job) Thanks to those that have emailed me responses. Feel free to leave a comment below without anything in the url or 'www' in your comments. Will attempt to fix it soon.

Liquid Conference - Registrations Open

5 November, 2004 3:19 PM

The Liquid Conference is now taking registrations online.

It will be an amazing few days of exploring the themes of:

- Engaging culture & community
- Spiritual formation & discipleship
- Compassionate living & social justice

Its being held here in Melbourne between Wed 9 – Fri 11 February 2005.

Both the organizations that I work for (LivingRoom and Forge) and supporters of this event (as are many other wonderful groups from around our city). Apparently we've already got a few registrations from overseas (including one or two readers of this blog I've heard) as well as a growing number of local registrations. I'm going and will be involved in running a few workshops and am coordinating some evening worship times. Would love to have you come along.

Emerging Worship Workshop - With Mark Pierson

4 November, 2004 5:18 PM

Thursday 11th November will see the next Forge Postcards from the Edge event held in the upper room of the Retro Café on Brunswick St.

Presenter Mark Pierson will be presenting on the topic of 'Emerging Worship'.

'How is worship evolving in these increasingly sceptical, and secular times? What is the role of art in our worship? How can we make worship more that just a spectator sport? Is we've always done it this way, really a good reason not to do it differently? Innovation, creativity, and relevance in worship.'

Mark has many years of experience in thinking through issues of church, mission and worship and is a sought after presenter on this topic. He's the co-writer of the book 'Prodigal Project', pastor at Cityside Baptist (Auckland) and has recently taken up a position heading up Urban Seed in Melbourne. We’re looking forward to an enjoyable and stimulating evening of learning and discussion with Mark and hope you’re able to join us.

As always – feel free to bring a friend, partner, small group, worship team – whoever you think will benefit from this time.

Where: Retro Café (upstairs) - 413 Brunswick St Fitzroy (Melbourne Australia)
When: 11th November
Time: Either 6pm (ish) for dinner (an informal dinner in the café downstairs with some of the Forge network) or come at 7.30pm for the start of the night upstairs. The night will finish before 9.30pm.
Cost: $10 for students/pension and $15 for everyone else. There will also be food and drinks available for purchase during the night at normal café prices.

There is no need to RSVP but you may contact me if you would like more information on this evening.

Emerged Church Blogger

11 October, 2004 12:34 PM

Just spotted a new emerging church blogger on my News Aggregator - or should I say he seems to think of himself as an 'Emerged Church Blogger' if his last post is anything to go by. His name is Travelling for Jesus' sake Donovan St Claire and he writes:

'Spent some time today looking through some of the so called emerging church blogs. There are some good people out there but on the whole it was a bit disappointing. Some of them seemed to be caught in a bit of a time warp. I think that from now on I will refer to stuff that we are doing as the emerged church. So how can the emerging church catch up with the emerged church. Here are Donovan the man's rules.'

His 'rules' are interesting to say the least. He talks about:
1) Pop Culture and celebrity culture.
2) Good bye Community
3) Vocation, Vocation, Vocation!
4) Who do you go to?

Reactions to Shapings of Things to Come

5 October, 2004 11:07 AM

Just stumbled upon a review of an event in London where a couple of Aussie colleagues of mine from Forge spoke - and it seems caused something of a stirr. Check out this commentary at small ritual for one opinion of the 'blah' event.

'it made me angry because thrown together/ordeal/deadline/risk/survival is my everyday work experience, and it's no fun when it happens all the time. it burns. and this 'communitas' as described by frost sounds remarkably like the conventions of team-work and team-building within large corporations.'

Emergent Like Slime was impressed with the teaching:

'Actually I found that Frost and Hirst's enthusiasm for innovation and a church in 'proximity' to the community, 'practicing the presence of Christ' won me over; the final appeal to us to stop expecting congregations to be evangelists and start enabling them to be christlike almost made me cry as well as laugh, though of course I'm a sucker for rhetoric blended with sincerity. '

Si (no permlink?) took some good notes of the different sessions which look pretty similar to our Forge Intensives.

Maggi was also less than impressed with the sessions writing:

'I'm a lot less than excited about the Hirsch and Frost vision of Church. It's too much hard work for the wrong kind of ends, in my opinion. No time to pray. No space for the kids. No time to visit the hungry, the elderly, the sick. In this vision you'll be too busy giving away the gospel to have time to contemplate what it means. You'll have no energy either if you buy into the macho, gangland-inspired Fight-Club vision of Church.'

update - it seems Maggi was not writing about the talk (she wasn't there) but the book.

Nouslife doesn't seem to have been there either but bounces of Steve's comments and writes:

'I am concerned that liminal and risky are considered normative. I think I know where that stuff is coming from; I've served my apprenticeship in church growth circles and in circles where faith is spelt “R-I-S-K”. But to seem to encourage continual hyped-up-ness is not going to help burnt-out church leaders [or memebers come to that]. I once took over in leadership at a church where the constant sdginess had been a norm. It's great for a while; really exciting, encouraging, giving a sense of direction, of purpose that we are changing the world. Then we run into the wall: we go emotionally numb, all the old tricks don't work any more at enthusing us, relationships that had been put on hold start falling over though lack of maintainance and everything begins to feel tired. People start leaving; they can't keep up the pace and their lives have been wrecked. Our paralimbic systems are not supposed to be switched on all the time. We need times of normality, of consolidation of -God help us!- Sabbath.'

I've often suspected that what is happening in 'Emerging Church' circles around the world might have different accents - I wonder if some of these reactions reflect that. I'll be interested to continue to follow how the reactions are from other bloggers as they get back to their computers. Andrew Jones was there but is yet to update - and Jonny was too but is probably so busy organizing and trying to keep Alan and Mike out of the pubs that he hasn't yet given much of an opinion.

Great conversation - following it with interest.

emerging church = hillsong?

3 October, 2004 10:16 PM

Steve has an interesting post titled emerging church = hillsong? that reminds me of comments I've heard increasingly at the mention of the term 'emerging church' recently. I'll let you head over there to ponder Steve's question and read my response.

Emerging Church - Theological Position?

1 October, 2004 1:04 PM

I've had a few people email me in the past weeks asking me to describe 'Emerging/Emergent Church' theology - particularly on issues of how open-theistic we are. I've responded with a number of comments that can be summed up in these sorts of points:

- In my experience of EC it is very difficult to make general statements about theology because it tends to vary as much in these circles as it does in the wider church. Some communities could be described as being more open/liberal in their understanding on some issues, but others could be described as a little more fundamentalistic in their approach with of course there being plenty that would fall in between.

- In my experience in Melbourne EC circles most churches/individuals probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum - perhaps even erring on the side of conservative in their understanding of Scripture, God etc. Maybe this is just a Melbourne thing? Most in my experience are perhaps a little more radical/open when it comes to mission - but less so on their theological thinking.

- In my limited experience of interacting with people in Overseas contexts I would reflect that there seem to be different strands/accents of the EC in different regions. I suspect EC means something a little different to those in the UK to the US and then again different again in Australia and NZ, Asia etc. I'm not experienced enough to make any real statments on this - its just a suspicion. If anyone wants to buy me a round the world ticket I'd love to do some research into that! :-)

Interested in others thoughts and experiences on the theology of the Emerging Church

What is the Emerging Church II

21 September, 2004 6:44 PM

In response to an older article post that I'd written in January titled What is the Emerging Church? - a reader (Drew) has kindly left his thoughts on the question. He went to a bit of effort to leave his answer so I thought I'd highlight it here in the hope that it might re-stimulate the conversation. Here is what he wrote: (Thanks Drew!)

'Having just debated the whole 'What is the emerging church?' with a work colleague (who then directed me to this site as he felt he couldn't adequately argue the point), I would have to say three things:

1) Don't think this hasn't been done before. Disillusionment with any human attempt to nut out and put into practice what Jesus taught and lived is age old.

Everything is a pendulum swing. The disillusionment with the fundamentalism of my parents generation (I'm 34) brought about the Pentecostal movement. Disillusionment with that is bringing about a group who believe it's time we got back to some solid Bible study and move away from emotional 'lobstering'. Disillusionment towards both perchance forms something of the 'emerging church' movement.

2) Whatever the 'emerging church' movement brings to fruition will become, over time, institutional itself, whether that be cafe churches, home churches, small groups, community based meetings, etc.

Such is the nature of social (even spiritual) communities. Like-minded people band together and settle on structure and format. This is not a bad thing. This is a way of ensuring growth (however empirical you want that to be) and also encouraging maturity and depth. (Jesus didn't pick 12 new apostles every day!)

Of course, there will be some who then become disillusioned with the 'emerging church' movement and what it is attempting to achieve, and they will form the 'post-emerging church' movement.

But... and this leads me to point 3...

3) Be encouraged. Dissatisfaction is what moves along the hyperbole of change. And a constant evaluation of our spirituality and our institutions in light of what we understand Jesus was on about is essential to the continuing life of the Church.

Just as youth, by its very nature, seeks to test the boundaries of the social and parental structure it grows up in, so too should we continually evaluate our spirituality--without, and I stress this, necessarily condemning or feeling the need to tear down what currently stands (a point argued with my work friend).

Seek the new. Chart new territories. Discover who Jesus is to you and the community you live in.

And while some may condemn a belief in spiritual things (as evidenced in this blog), I must confess that I will applaud any person's attempt to find a truth that calls them to a higher understanding of love, mercy, grace, hope, peace and the part they play in the greater community. When the Bible talks about the Fruits of the Spirit (the best attributes we can have as humans) it was said, Against these there is no law.

Once again, be encouraged. Debate. Stretch. Grow. Create. Embody.'

Emerging Church Gatherings

17 September, 2004 6:09 PM

Have been working today on the Liquid conference that a group of us are helping to run between 9-11 February next year.

It will be 3 days focussing upon giving insight and training across the three interconnected streams of Christian mission
- Engaging culture & community
- Spiritual formation & discipleship
- Compassionate living & social justice

'Liquid will help you create a holistic framework of faith that integrates your entire life.  At the one event you’ll be encouraged to go deeper in your personal relationship with Jesus, actively care for the poor, and connect with people from various cultures.  It’s about learning how the spiritual, social and culture streams can work together.'

This will be a great gathering that is being put on by a number of groups here in Melbourne including Forge Missional Training Network, Frontier Servants, Living Room, Northern Community Church of Christ, Scripture Union, Soul Survivor, Tabor College and TEAR.

Also running in February is an intensive week looking at themes of emerging church run by Forge. It would be a good few weeks to be in Melbourne if you're interested in a trip. Maybe some of your northern hemisphere readers could escape your winter for a few weeks of networking, learning and sun! Let me know if you want more information.

xtreme faith

15 September, 2004 12:56 PM

I really like Steve's post on xtreme ways. He talks about having seen xtreme worship, xtreme community but wants to see xtreme discipleship. He writes:

'I want to see xtreme discipleship. In a world where the passion of Islam includes a willingness to take up one's cross to death do us part, it is time for xtreme worship and extreme community to be entwined with xtreme discipleship. It is time for radical peacemaking and keen environmental concern and social justice to enter the regular praxis of the emerging church.'

I especially like his statement:

'xtreme worship + xtreme community + xtreme discipleship = xtreme ways of the Kingdom of God'

I've been thinking the same sorts of things lately. In my travels through the wider Christian community over the years I've seen individuals/groups/me concentrate our efforts upon one or two aspects of the life and teachings of Jesus. To some degree I think that that is natural - sometimes God chooses to work on us one step at a time - but I worry at times when I see lopsided looking churches that have a long history of only exploring one thing.

To use our DNA/Core Values to put language to this - I've been involved in groups that have almost solely focused upon the Inner Journey, others who have almost exclusively worked at the Outer Journey - and others who focus on the Together journey almost to the exclusion of the others. In my experience it is when we allow the journeys to collide that we actually find that the sparks fly - one journey impacts and enlivens the other - to remove one is to limit the potential we have to know, experience and respond to God.

What I'm feeling a renewed call to at the moment is a place of balance between all three. I'm talking on a personal level here - its easy to be side-tracked.

However I've also noticed something else - sometimes (and I stress sometimes) in aiming for 'balance' or a holistic approach it is tempting to lose the edge, to become complacent and to be a little 'wishy washy'.

I wonder if perhaps its easier to be 'xtreme' in one area than it is to be in two - and even harder to be 'xtreme' in three?

I wonder if it is easier to keep one's 'edginess' if there is only one cutting edge rather than three? (hmmm..... that makes me think of a knife - can a knife stay sharp with more than two cutting edges?... I'm getting side tracked now).

Now I'm not wanting to make excuses here to just focus upon mission, or worship, or community or whatever aspect of the call of Jesus we feel predisposed to respond to. I'm convinced that the commands of Jesus to love 'God', 'Neighbor' (and self), 'One Another' were not three options but rather something of an intertwined package. And the example that he gave us to do so was 'xtreme' to say the least.

However I think we have to acknowledge that its a complex thing we're striving for (although at times - in moments of clarity - its remarkably simple) in the midst of a chaotic world of change. How it manifests itself in each of our lives and communities will also be remarkably different from one another due to our contexts.

I'm thinking out loud here again - writing on the fly again so please forgive me while I attempt something resembling a point.

I'm wondering if we need to learn to see the call of Jesus as a more integrated, single focused call again? Whilst using language like, 'Inner, Outer and Together' journeys can be helpful to unpack his message and help us respond - perhaps they also limit us in someway. Maybe our knife does have three edges, perhaps even more? Maybe its time to try to get our head around a more integrated life of faith again.

Interested in your thoughts - feelings - reactions - experiences to some of this.

Emerging Church Resonance

14 September, 2004 6:44 PM

The last few months I've seen an increased interest from a number of groups that are searching for information on and learning about Emerging Church. Today Kim and I from Forge had the privilege of sharing a session about our respective churches at a bible college that has a whole subject dedicated to 'Emerging Missional Church' this year. Last week I did a phone conference call with a class of pastors from another bible college. Its so fantastic to see people genuinely interested in what we're doing.

When we first started I'd had a few weird reactions to what we're trying with LivingRoom from other churchy types - I'm not sure if we were perceived at heretics, threats or just plain crazy - but as time is going on I'm finding more and more people resonating and comfortable with what we're doing. Of course there are still some who give a bit of a quizzical look or who ask questions that seem to be attached to iceberg like agendas (not much showing but loads under the surface) - but in general people are incredibly supportive and encouraging.

Interesting times.

Discipleship Workshop - Melbourne

13 September, 2004 10:09 PM

Here are the details of an upcoming event that Melbournian readers might be interested in that Forge (who I work for part time) is running in October.

John Jensen (formerly from California - now part of the Forge team in Victoria) will be sharing on the theme of Discipleship in a New World. We've chosen this theme as a result of having a number of requests for a more practical night of sharing some tips and strategies for helping people to grow in their faith in the chaotic world we live in.

John is a gifted communicator and will share some material that he's actually used and seen implemented very successfully in a number of contexts. This would be a great night to bring a small group or community to so feel free to invite anyone who might be interested.

You'll see the details below in the brochure above (click to download pdf - feel free to print it and use it in inviting others). The basics are:

Where: Retro Cafe (upstairs) - 413 Brunswick St Fitzroy.
When: 7th October
Time: Either 6pm (ish) for dinner (an informal dinner in the cafe downstairs with some of the Forge people) or come at 7.30pm for the start of the night upstairs.
Cost: $10 for students/pension and $15 for everyone else. There will also be food and drinks available for purchase during the night at normal cafe prices.

"They are not a church!"

9 September, 2004 5:46 PM

Phil over at signposts has an interesting post that sounds vaguely familiar. Its a comment that someone made about his church....

""They are not a Church. They do things in a cafe and in homes. They do it during the week too and not just on Sunday. At some of these things that they call 'worship' they have a meal together and they call that communion! Jesus told us to meet on Sunday and to go to Church. They are not a Church!""

Read more at signposts: what they think:

Discipleship in a New World

3 September, 2004 11:53 AM

As part of the Forge network I'm helping to put on an event exploring the theme of 'Discipleship in a New World'. Many of us have experimented with emerging forms of worship, mission, communication, community etc - but one of the questions I'm hearing more and more being asked is 'how do you disciple people in this postmodern context?'

The world is in a rapid state of change - at times it feels pretty chaotic - people can be so transient, dysfunctional, busy - how do we actually take seriously the command of Jesus to 'make disciples' in this context?

Well we don't have all the answers, but it is a theme that we'll be exploring in an evening in October here in Melbourne. If it is a theme you'd be interested in exploring check out the details below. One of our team, John Jensen, will facilitate the night and present a way forward that I've found to be quite simple yet profound.

So come along to:

Retro Cafe (upper room) - 413 Brunswick St Fitzroy (Melbourne Australia - sorry you overseas bods!)
Thursday 7th October 7.30-9.30pm
Bring $15 or $10 if you are a student/unemployed
Food and drink will be available for purchase during the evening at the bar.

Come early (6pm) to grab a bite to eat with us in the cafe downstairs. Dinner will be a pretty informal time but you're more than welcome to drop by and have a bowl of risotto or pasta with us.

Contact me if you want any more information.

This would be an ideal night to bring a group to - We'll be bringing LivingRoom instead of having our regular Wednesday night meeting that week - so cancel your small group/church meeting and come along for what should be a great night of learning and networking.

Lovemarks and the Church - Intimacy

31 August, 2004 12:18 PM

It has been a while since I started the Lovemarks series - sorry for the delay - I got a little distracted.

This is the forth post in a four part series examining the book, Lovemarks, in relation to Spirituality and Church. Read my introduction to the series first and follow the links from there to read what proceeds this entry.

The last element focused upon in 'Lovemarks'. is Intimacy. Their theory is that products that exude intimacy are far more likely to capture the minds, and more importantly the hearts, of potential customers. I think we would all agree that as human beings we all have a desire - no a need - for intimacy - it is the way we've been created. To connect with another human being is a powerful thing. Marketers have latched onto this human trait and are now focussing their energies into presenting their products as intimate.

Consider how this can be seen in advertising. I was walking past a 'Sports Girl' store recently (an Aussie retail outlet selling clothes to young women) and noticed the advertising out the front of their shop. In the window hung a huge poster featuring 6 women - probably in their late teens. The thing that grabbed my attention about the ad was not the clothes the models were wearing but the fact that they were obviously having such a good time with one another. The image had little do do with clothes, in fact the clothes were out of focus and hardly noticeable, this image was selling companionship, fun, relationship and sisterhood. This is a common story in advertising these days - most car advertisements here in Australia these days are more about family and relationships than they are about engine size or specifications. Banking ads focus upon the security their products will bring to families than they do upon interest rates and account facilities. Intimacy sells.

Jesus was someone who obviously was big on Intimacy in his three years of ministry. The whole basis of his discipleship focus happened around relationships. When he called that group of fishermen to follow him that day he was not calling them to a program of speakers, a couple of intense camping experiences and a pastoral visit once or twice a year - he was calling them to live with him. They spent three years living in each other's pockets - hiking around the countryside together, sharing meals with one another, laying down at night beside each other and knowing each other intimately.

One of the things that got Jesus crucified was that he was just way to intimate with people. He ate with the wrong people, he touched the wrong people and he talked to the wrong people. I think we lose most of the significance of the social barriers he crossed. To eat with a sinner, to touch a leper, to be touched by a prostitute, to speak with a Samaritan woman were not just events to be frowned upon - they totally went against something the society was built around. People were never intimate in these ways with anyone outside their own level of purity - it just did not happen. Jesus sought intimacy with people from all walks of life - and people responded to him in powerful ways.

The early church continued to walk in this path of a life of intimacy - it only takes a quick look at the first few chapters of Acts to spot it. This was a group of people who didn't just see each other once or twice a week - they were in each other's homes, visiting the temple together, sharing meals with one another, sharing their possessions, reaching out to those in need etc. Faith was not something a group of individuals did - occasionally connecting - it was something a community did together.

So how does the church go with Intimacy?
As we've done previously with Mystery and Sensuality we could look through church history and find times and places where the church did intimacy both well and poorly. Likewise we can all probably think of churches of today that have both good and bad examples of people connecting intimately with one another. I know in the churches I've belonged to over the years I've both felt the warm embrace and the cold shoulder of fellow below believers.

Overall though I think there is a lot more 'the Church' can do to build intimacy into both our life of worship and mission. Of course I'm grossly generalizing here but most worship services I've been to over the years have done little to build a sense of togetherness with others within the congregation or, dare I say it, God. Sitting on an uncomfortable seat staring at the back of the head of my brothers or sisters in Christ while a small group of others do most of the activity to me is hardly an intimate moment - I can only speak for me but often I find this approach rather isolating and disconnecting. Of course we do have an opportunity to connect with one another after worship over a cup of coffee (usually the cheapest brand available) and a stale biscuit which is a step in the right direction - but I wonder sometimes if we're just making excuses and kidding ourselves about the community we have.

Probably the best times of community I've had within churches have happened in small groups/bible study groups/accountability groups. Obviously a small group breeds a different sort of environment which can open up deeper levels of relationship - but even then I wonder how much we've discovered of the way of discipleship of Jesus. I've written before about the traditional 'sharing time' of a small group where people go around the circle and share how their week has been so others can pray for them. Nice idea - but if we had true community wouldn't we already know a lot of what is shared in these times because we'd been connecting with each other, living with each other between meetings?

The other area I'd like to see intimacy explored more in is in 'mission'. The way Jesus drew people to God was usually incredibly personal. He spoke one on one with many, touched people, ate in small groups with them - developed relationship. I won't go on about it here today (this is getting too long as it is), but I wonder if in many of our approaches to mission we have sucked the intimacy out of what we do by programming missional encounters (this is a topic for another day - if I go down this track today we'll enter into 'rant land'.

I'm trying desperately here to remain positive about the state of play in the church today - please believe me when I say my experiences of intimacy in church are not all bad - I just strongly believe we could do so much better. I love the church friends - I want to see it reach its fullest potential - as a result when I see that marketing experts seem to be doing a better job of our core business than we are I get a little fired up.

'Lovemarks'. gives some pointers on building intimacy - here is a quick summary of some of their main points:
- Intimacy is a two way street - it isn't something we do to another person but something we have. Therefore it is something we have to allow ourselves to experience and enter into and not just expect others to do.
- Intimacy requires feelings.
- Intimacy is about empathy - 'empathy is created out of the tension between the sound of the voice and an intended silence' (ie it is about listening).
- Intimacy is about commitment - if you want it you have to be in for the long haul. People will not respond if they think you're about to take off halfway through a relationship.
- Intimacy is about passion - without passion even the best laid plans will whither and die.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of things we could say about intimacy - but it is a good starting point for a discussion on the topic.

Questions to explore Intimacy with your Community
We spent a bit of time talking through this issue a few weeks ago at LivingRoom - we're only just scratching the surface with intimacy in my opinion - we have a lot to learn but here are some of the questions we tossed around. Feel free to take and use them if you'd like - add your own below in comments.

How was Jesus intimate in his Ministry? What other times in Scripture do we see themes of intimacy, community, relationship? Describe times in your own journey when you've experienced deep intimacy? Describe how it arose - what were the circumstances/elements? How has the church used Intimacy over the centuries from the Early Church in Acts to now? (focus on the good and the bad). What dangers would there be in focussing too much upon 'intimacy' in a church context? What would the benefits of an increased focus upon it be? How are we as a community going in this area - where/how does intimacy exist - how could we build more? Is the way we worship an approach that buids intimacy with one another - with Gold? What about mission - are we approaching it in a relational way or do we program relationships out of the equation?

Lovemarks and the Church – Sensuality

10 August, 2004 12:25 PM

This is the third in a four part series examining the book, Lovemarks, in relation to Spirituality and Church. Read my introduction to the series first. Sensuality As we've already touched on, the traditional approach focuses more upon convincing the mind through logic, information and claims. Lovemark Marketing is more interested in emotions. Stimulating the Senses is one of the best ways in which to do this.

"Our senses work together, and when they are stimulated at the same time the results are unforgettable.... They alert us, enflame us, warn us as well as fill our hearts with joy." Its amazing how a simple smell can transport us back in time to a specific moment (good or bad) - how the touch of another person can warm our soul or how putting on a CD can change the whole mood and atmosphere of a party.

Sight, Touch, Hearing, Taste and Smell are powerful forces - they are the way in which we take in information, learn and grow. Advertisers are discovering this and are finding new ways to engage our senses with what they do. I think of my local supermarket and the coffee company that regularly sets up a booth of free brewed coffee. I know that they are there even before I enter the isle in which they are set up because of the smell which wafts through the shop. By the time I get to them I'm ready to buy their product purely on its smell.

"All of our knowledge comes to us through the senses, but they are far more than sop