Linda at I Wonder as I Wander has been asking for the missing link to my emerging church series in 2005 so that she can complete the set. Here is the invisible post known as Number 4 – Emergant: New Media Fluency and here is the whole set: Emergant: The Skinny on the Global Emerging…
Read MoreEmerge-ed and The Great Emergence
The Great Emergence? Phyllis Tickle talking about The Great Emergence in this interview with Read the Spirit. You may want to read my early review of her excellent book. Phyllis is still using that term “emerging” but in a wider sense, historically and geographically, as many of us have been doing. In her interview, she…
Read MoreEmerging Church: You Say Dump It
I have been wrestling, as you know, on whether to keep the term “Emerging Church” and apply it to a new project this year. Here are the results from my poll: Results: 60/40 on dumping it. OK – I hear you but let me tell you my dilemma and how hard it is for me.…
Read MoreEmerging Church: A Ridiculously Subjective Account
Heres the poster for my session at Greenbelt Festival this month. Click to enlarge. Hear me talk at 4:30pm in the CMS Small Tent, Sunday 24th August. For those unfamiliar with Greenbelt Festival and lacking in a sense of humor, let me assure you this is a very tongue-in-cheek account and should not be tried…
Read MoreGloboChrist: The Book to Read
This is for the missional entrepreneurs working in continental Europe that I will be teaching in Belgium next week. You know who you are and you may have been notified of my book recommendation. If not, here it is: The most important book you can read in preparation for my presentations, the one and only…
Read MoreAlt. Worship to Emerging Church to ?
Interesting article by Brian Draper on the Alt. Worship movement with Andy Thornton suggesting in 1998 that the movement was at a crossroads. With so many people suggesting the hat no longer fits and we should dump the term, and even the South Africans getting upset in being misrepresented [read Codrington on MacArthur), it makes…
Read MoreEmerging Church: Use the Word or Dump it?
“Emerging Church”. Music to some and fingernails on blackboard to others. Should we use this term or not as we launch another project? Part of me says yes and the other part says no. Here is my predicament: I have been asked to help set up an “Emerging Church Fund” that supports the global emerging…
Read MoreAlan Creech’s short history of the emerging church
“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.” Alan Creech, What I am and what i am not – or a short history and explanation of the wider “emerging church”. Back in 2001, when I…
Read MoreBrian McLaren at Lambeth
“. . . decisions could be made in this gathering that I believe really could change history — of setting the challenge of entering this emerging, post-modern world as disciples, as apostles of Jesus Christ, we could change history.” Brian McLaren at Lambeth All the reports seem overwhelming positive about “Emergent Evangelist” Brian McLaren speaking…
Read MoreAmsterdam: Meeting Phil Graf, Carl Raschke and Hugh Halter
Here are some more details on my strategic meeting with some fellow conspirators in Amsterdam a few days ago. Let me introduce them to you. Phil Graf (left) is the missional training for a really stiff-upper-lip mission organization (just kidding) called Christian Associates. He also knows his beers pretty well and enjoys the Trappist ales…
Read MoreMissional Synchroblog: The Skinny on Missional
Missional. I lost my job because of “missional”. I will tell you how in a second but, first thing, before i start whining over losing my job at the Baptist Convention of Texas, welcome to the missional synchroblog, organized by Rick at Blind Beggar. My entry is one of the latest (stuck in Aberdeen due…
Read MoreFour Steams: Emerging, Missional, Mosaic, Monastic.
Tom Sine has an excellent article online called Joining the Anabaptist Conspirators which draws from his book. He lists 4 kinds of activists in this movement that is redefining Christianity.: Emerging, Missional, Mosaic and Monastic. I really like this! Where do we fit? I see all 4 streams in what we are doing. Sorry if…
Read MoreEmerging, Emergent and Missional
Interesting conversation going on about terms, in particular the words “emergent” and “emerging”. I know some people use the words interchangeably and others draw clear lines in the sand. I have never liked the lines very much. I see churches inside the Emergent Village world that do not show any characteristics of emergent behavior and…
Read MoreIrresistible Revolution, by Shane Claibourne
Awake all night so I read a book. Fighting and swearing outside our window. After the police left around 3am I still couldn’t sleep so I made a hot bath and read Shane Claibourne’s book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. Its been on my shelf for (oppps . ) probably forever .…
Read MoreEmerging Church Movement: Since 2000?
“In the 1990s, there were very few examples of churches that were communicating within the perspectives and practices of new urban cultures. More typically at that time, the strategy consisted of making the church service relevant to outsiders . . . . In the year 2000, the emerging movement got its start” Ryan Bolger has…
Read MoreThe Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing And Why, by Phyllis Tickle
“While no observer is willing to say emphatically just how many North American Christians are definitely emergent at the moment, it is not unreasonable to assume that by the time the Great Emergence has reached maturity, about 60 percent of practising American Christians will be emergent or some clear variant thereof.” Phyllis Tickle, manuscript for…
Read MoreSLOT Festival in Poland – Your Invitation to Join Me and 5000 Other Weirdos
Last year at SLOT Festival we had a blast. This year will be even better PLUS there will be a roundtable for emerging church leaders running throughout the program. This is your invitation to join me and about 5000 others in Lubiaz, Poland, July 9-13, 2008. Yeah . . . BRING IT ON!!!!!!! Here are…
Read MoreDavid Pierce on Tall Skinny Kiwi
David Pierce, director of Steiger International and No Longer Music is my guest today. You can interact with him in the comments section if you want to ask him anything. Great guy. Amazing ministry. From a barge in Amsterdam to the ends of the earth, taking its message of hope to “some of the darkest…
Read MoreCarson or Keller at an Emerging Church Festival?
Gospel Coalition conference in Chicago today. Hey, if anyone there chats to D.A. Carson or Tim Keller, please invite them on my behalf to one of the many emerging church festivals this summer in Europe. People of their calibre don’t usually make it to the festivals here, despite thousands of young people who really appreciate…
Read MoreEmerging House Church Movement
Update: I just saw an excellent video of Reggie McNeal addressing the Reformed Church of America. He gives a good update on the house church movement. At least watch the first ten minutes to get a global view. Stay longer to hear why it will be really tough to go through this shift. Original: “They’re…
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