TransFORM is a “missional community formation network” based in USA that starts up on Monday Nov 2nd. Another great chance to jump into the emerging church stream and get some support for your new community, or some ideas on how to start one.
Steve Knight is the guy behind it. Steve and I had a really long SKYPE call a month or so ago and he explained the ideas behind this network and also their event next April. Steve is just a really great guy. He has been with the Billy Graham Association and more recently a mission called SIM. He gives time to other groups also like EV and whatever projects he sees God doing something in. And of course he has been blogging for a long time.
Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Andrew!
I too have hope here that this can be a supportive network for those in the states looking to start new forms of church. My prayer is that they can stay horizontal and grassroots oriented instead of going more vertical and become reliant on celebrities instead of the ordinary radicals who are on the ground. Fingers crossed.
I’m about as ordinary as they come, but I’m very grateful for the “celebrities” I call friends, including Becky and Andrew 😉
Thanks Steve – what I loved about Slot was the total absence of the celebrity culture. I went there as a story teller document what God’s people are doing in the name of Jesus. I really felt that I was just starting to tap into this undercurrent that all too often gets drowned out in the white noise of celebrity worship.
I am not blaming anyone for this this giant goldfish in itty-bitty goldfish bowl syndrome but it’s a particular animal that tends to be most common to Americana Christianity and it’s not limited to the emergent sphere – e.g., amazing how many names I could rattle off that are big guns in Episcopal circles and no one outside of that world knows who they are. I don’t find this model helpful for allowing new voices and forms of church to emerge.
BTW-I LOVE how the Nines Conference (which I only saw in tiny bits) presented a great format for a lot of authors, pastors, speakers, etc. to come together and share their wisdom. This strikes me as a very cost effective and helpful model that we might want to explore further as a way for leaders to communicate their ideas without continuing the culture of celebrity worship. A sign this isn’t healthy is when I hear people saying about a talk – “I was entertained by X,” “X’s dynamic performance really moved me” and other comments that point back to the speaker instead of pointing us to Christ.