Pilgrim, pilgrim, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to visit the emerging church scene
Pilgrim, pilgrim, what did you there?
I found a little queen sitting on her chair.
from “What did you go out to see?” by Andrew Jones, BC, Jan 2006.
For those of you reading my missions article in the Books and Culture [Christianity Today for conniseurs of fine thinking] you can interact with me in the comments below if you have any questions or further insight. The article is NOT on the internet. That means you need to subscribe or buy a copy of the magazine to read it. Which isn’t a bad idea.
Special thanks to Andy Crouch for his great job in editing. If you find the article a little CRYPTIC, please realize it was far more labyrinthian before Andy helped beat it into submission. For the record, the last time I wrote for CT was in 2000 – an article on Dante on the occasion of his 700th birthday and it was John Wilson who was cursed with the job of editing that one.
OK, I’m not reading the article… can’t say I’ve ever read “Christianity Today” (or “Christianity Yesterday” or even “Christianity forever”)… but, I just had a little question for you based on the above… Who is this “Queen” of the Emerging Church? And are they male or female? We should be told! 😉
not another inaccessible article – you need to renegotiate contracts with these guys! get them to agree you can publish the article the month after it goes on their site or something?
it may appear online soon. Its a part of the Christian Vision Project and i notice that the other articles are getting published online
as for the queen, the idea is this
if we want to participate with God in this next phase, we need to learn again how to see, and what to look for. we know that much of the new movements are tiny and organic (mice) but when we go in search of them, we get sidetracked by the familiar and what we expect to see – another celebrity with a big church (queen or king)
Oh I see… I like that and I thought you were refering to the “metro-sexual” tendencies of urban emerging church types… 😉 As a republican I think my natural tendency is to run away from any Kings or Queens… or at least to be suspicious and/or cynical of them, maybe unjustifiably!
and yet we make kings of our mega-church Pastors and best selling authors . . .
this is going to make me go to the library….
i used to oke about Christianity Yesterday. But I have found that it’s not that bad of a rag, but their online site does leave one in anticipation, but heck, I’m still waiting for “Chinese Democracy”.
Some do I suppose Andrew… I don’t know many mega-emerging-churches in London though… but I do agree there is a tendency to idolise authors and bloggers 😉 within the “emerging church scene”.
…it was far more labyrinthian…
That’s so…EC 😉
Thanks, Andrew, for the terrific article. Even those who don’t read CT might want to find out more about Books & Culture, where your article appeared. It’s a terrific magazine and very different from CT.
In any event, your article will be posted online not *too* long from now, and I’ll let you know when it’s up so you can let your blog readers know!
Grace and peace,
Andy