commenting here

i've turned commenting back on on with word verification which should eliminate automated comment spam.

i've turned comments off....

...until blogger can figure out how to stop all the comment spam i'm getting. i think i've gotten like 7 in the last 2 hours or so.

Anne Lamott

Why do you write? I write because writing is the gift God has given me to help people in the world. I came with curly hair, green eyes, and the ability to shape and tell stories in a way that a certain kind of person finds helpful, and funny. I love to make people laugh, because nothing is more life giving. I love to help people feel a sense of connection in their lives, by sharing the truth and details of mine — this seems to greatly decrease people's feeling of isolation. I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness — and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.

powells.com runs an interview with Anne Lamott. ht to jordon.

wendy also points us to where anne is blogging!

Crashing towards Truth?
A Thought on an Interview with Brian McLaren

...McLaren emphatically says that he is after the truth.

"One person who has talked about me has stated as a fact that I'm a relativist," says McLaren. The accusation is built on the foundation of one quote pulled out of context from one of his books, says McLaren: "There's a whole chapter in the book that he draws the quote from that repudiates relativism."

"It's such a wicked statement to say I don't believe in truth," McLaren adds, "It's very disappointing." He is adamant that he does believe in an objective truth, saying, "I can think of many places in my writing where I make that very, very clear. They're also accusing us of capitulating to post-modernity although we say in many places that we're not interested in being postmodern. I rarely even use the word."

subversive influence points us to a Covenant News interview with Brian McLaren.

I often read Brian's writings as iconoclastic. (I read Jesus speaking similarly at times with such statements as If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26, ESV). Such statements can right-brain us out of our comfortable theological and practical paradigms. Coming out of an age that celebrated the theological architect, statements of theological artistry aren't always appreciated. But they must not always be judged on architectural criteria. I'm not sure that criticisms of such writings aren't inevitable when the mode of discourse isn't understood.

One of the most valuable things I've ever heard Brian say is "Regard every complaint and criticism as a request for assistance." One can charitably view the higher waves crashing down in our recent emerging storm as just such dramatic assistance requests, sometimes leading us to underline where clear, non-artistic statements have been made.

Though the dance of accusation and response can be painful, these criticisms and the crisp clarifications they are evoking could serve to further the emerging conversation.

Photo Supplied by FreeFoto.com

A Gift for Us

Yesterday I got my biopsy results. My wife and I had prayed and prayed. The closer we got to the appointment, the more urgently we prayed. We prayed in the car. We prayed all the way into the building. Out loud. Must have seemed a little weird to the people we were walking through. Prayed in the elevator. Prayed in the waiting room. Prayed desperately in the appointment room. "God don't let them find it to be malignent cancer."

And it was.

It felt like our last medical hope was kicked out from under us just like that. The tumor on my kidney is 6 inches across. No wonder I'm almost always feeling bloated and can't eat much.

Despair really overwhelmed us. Our worst fears gripped us and we wept and wept. Just sat and cried. How can it be that every time we look for an answer the situation turns incredibly worse? How can it be that every time we look to God to bail us out here, He turns the tide against us? How can it be that our last medical hope - physical hope is now gone? The worst case scenerio. Renal (kidney) cancer. A really big one. And spreading to the liver and lungs. Now confirmed.

This from the first blogpost by Dwayne Harms - who pastored Living Hope Church in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - on Thursday 30 June 2005. Dwayne died on Tuesday 16 August at the age of 37 after chronicling the last leg of his journey. I've started reading his thoughts and they're helpful meditations from his unique vantage point.

If you think of it, pls speak with God ab Dwayne's family - he leaves a wife and two children.

via jordon

jones on barna

...what he says could indeed be considered revolutionary, it certainly is a change of strategy for him, and it will be for many ministers and leaders who read the book. Especially the part about followers of Jesus who progress spiritually WITHOUT going to a local congregation - a group of people that will grow from 30% to around 70% in the next 20 years, making the FRINGE Christians the MAJORITY, and giving churches a good reason to rethink the next building program, and Seminaries to rethink their aggressive recruiting strategies.
Well, actually, those repercussions are mine, not Barna's. But his book informed them.

andrew jones reviews a prepub copy of george barna's forthcoming book revolution.

jason clark also posts some thoughts and questions.

Correction: On Calvinism and the Emerging Church

in an earlier post - the nexus of the emerging church and calvinism - i had written:

It's said that when John Wesley, the ardent Arminian, died, that an enthusiastic follower of the Calvinist George Whitfield asked him if they would see Wesley in heaven. Whitfield said no:
“No, he will be so near the throne, and we at such a distance, that we shall hardly get a glimpse of him.

in a comment on that post someone today wrote:

Considering Wesley preached Whitfields Funeral, I find this highly unlikely.

i checked wikipedia and found out that john wesley died on 2 March 1791 and george whitfield died on 30 september 1770 so the commenter is correct that i must be in error.

I googled a bit more and - whether true or not (does anyone know?) - whitfield did say this of wesley but not at his funeral.

thanks to the corrector and i've amended the article accordingly.

unraveling the emerging church

Perhaps you have noticed all the attention the Emerging Church seems to attract these days. Within the last year the emerging church has been the focus of news articles on the front page of the New York Times, in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. It was the topic of an hour-long religious special on ABC, as well as numerous cable television and radio shows. Not to mention the attention generated by religious news outlets and publishers who are creating their own line of emerging products.

Doug Pagitt suggests a list of characteristics of the ec.

ht to andrew jones.

emerging in charlotte

beth, the beauties, and I visited charlotte, nc this past weekend and had a great time going to warehouse242 and connecting with some ec folks who can sometimes be found there - specifically the Smith, Garvin and Knight tribes.

from left to right:

Beth Shields, Isaiah, Abraham, and Israel with their parents - Yashica (Shica) and Anthony Smith, along with their daughter Deborah. Then, Rod Garvin and his daughter Ayanni (Yanni). Then Hayden and Olivia and their parents, Steve and Becky Knight.

My daughters Michaela Siobhan, Skye Teresa, and Alia Noelle were with Beth's sister Bonnie Jones and her husband Phil Anderson at Carowinds while Beth and I explored just what connecting with adults and having adulttalk actually looks like.

Some of these folks you may know from the noise they make online:

• Rod Garvin is a thoughtful poet and essayist and his blog is well worth reviewing.
  
• Anthony Smith has a huge brain and I'm still wrapping mine around his thinking. You can dive in here (Beth Shields: "Stephen, I think he reads more books than you do"). Anthony promised eventually to post the material he's presenting at the After Evangelicalism confab that Cornerstone University is sponsoring in September. He'll be focusing there on ec diversity.
  
• And, of course, emergers are used to tracking the incisive commentary of Steve Knight and his daily adventures @ Knightopia.

We had a wonderful lunch @ Moe's and the conversation was just as tasty.

relevantmagazine.com

The all-new RELEVANTmagazine.com is now up! Not only is there a completely new look, there are 10 content sections, a Podcast, a video section, a prayer room and a lot more. But we've only just begun—over the coming months many new features (like a music video channel, blogs and premium content) will be added as well.

Relevant has redesigned their site.

emergent canada

charlie wear lets us know about emergent canada.

there we read:

For example, when I asked Jordon how it might fit with Resonate, he seemed to think that the two groups could coexist happily, because Resonate was more regional, more fringe, and looser.

kudos to jordon for eschewing the territorial.

Reformation 21

Steve McCoy advises us that the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has launched a new online zine.

They also have a blog.

an honest biography

Aitken painstakingly unfolds Colson's maturation—his coming to faith, his time in prison, his mania for control (still a problem, Aitken shows), a few relapses into the "old Colson," his early flirtation with becoming a Christian celebrity. Aitken even tells of a dubious maneuver in which Colson plants supporters in an awards program, resulting in a standing ovation for himself. Perhaps the most poignant contrast in the book is seeing the impatient, controlling Colson grow through a tender relationship with his autistic grandson, Max, who forces Colson to slow down and make someone else's timetable a priority.

Cindy Crosby reviews Jonathan Aitken's new biography of Chuck Colson entitled Charles W Colson: A Life Redeemed in a recent Christianity Today piece.

Losing Distractions

I really found resonance with Brian's comment

I also hope we can as soon as possible stop talking so much about certain notorious personalities (either semi-fictional ones or real ones) and certain notorious buzzwords (postmodern, emerging, etc., etc.), and instead get on with the more important mission which the Lord gave us: being and making disciples, in authentic community, for the good of the world.

in the third installment of his three part Response to Critics (part one here, part two here)

Through this ongoing conversation, I keep thinking about Paul's comment:

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. ¹¹For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. ¹²What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." ¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

1 Cor 1:10-13 (ESV)

It's so much more fun and less intimidating for us to discuss the borders of the stuff than the stuff itself. David Brainaird used to differentiate between those who talked about the shell of religion and those who talked about the nut. Surely I have done this.

It can almost be a hobby, a pleasant and intellectually stimulating passtime, for us to discuss "what is emerging?" and "are you emerging?" as if mere emerging were the point. (Pls understand that I am including myself in this gentle indictment).

God is too scary so by all means let's focus on mere religion instead.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

We need to be careful.

Brian McLaren Responds to Critics

I hope this brief narrative gives people a more accurate understanding of who the nonfictional Brian McLaren is, and I hope it will reduce collateral damage against people involved in the emergent conversation and the larger emerging church community. I also hope we can as soon as possible stop talking so much about certain notorious personalities (either semi-fictional ones or real ones) and certain notorious buzzwords (postmodern, emerging, etc., etc.), and instead get on with the more important mission which the Lord gave us: being and making disciples, in authentic community, for the good of the world.

The third and final part has been posted.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

the emerging culture cafe

stumbled across earl creps' new (or "new" - not sure how long it's been out there!) site. earl's known (among other things) for having an early comprehensive list of ec links and resources.

you can also see earl's blog here.

Remembering Peter Jennings: Bringing Coverage of Religion into the Mainstream

ABC's Peter Jennings is being remembered this week for many aspects of his work, but one aspect that bears particular notice is his efforts to increase network news coverage of religion. He was directly responsible for ABC's 1994 hiring of Peggy Wehmeyer as network news's only full-time religion correspondent. (She was laid off as part of a staff reduction in 2001 and now hosts a radio program for World Vision).

Ted Olsen highlights this aspect of Jennings' work.

Terry Mattingly also posts some thoughts on this thread in Jennings' coverage.

Is your Church Missional?

You no longer have to speculate. Now you can know, thanks to Brother Maynard's definitive turbocool diagnostic list.

Brian Posts Part 2 of 3

in His biographical narrative response to critics.

Brian McLaren Responds to Recent Criticisms

From Tony Jones' Intro:

It's also been interesting to me that much of the criticism of Brian this summer has run along the lines of, "I really like his missional thinking, but his philosophy and theology are dangerous." I talked to Brian about that, because those of us who know him realize that his recent theological investigations have been driven by his missional heart.

Part One of Brian's Three Part Response where he begins to give us an expansive, biographical post.

charlie's new blog

charlie wear, the publisher and editor of next-wave, has moved his blog.

peter jennings

To our surprise, he responded very warmly and even invited us to walk with him as he made the long trek through the building to his car.

I remember he commented to us that the people of the church has been very kind to him and his crew. He said this in a way that sounded slightly amazed....

mike mcnichols shares a personal encounter with the late peter jennings.

The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible and the With-God Life

Larry Wilson points us to a Craig Morton review of the this Bible on the Allelon site.

pls talk to God about jordon cooper

Jordon's eyes and pain have gotten expotentially worse. He can't blog or do a lot of things anymore on the computer and just basic task are taking a toll. He hasn't sleep more than a couple hours a night in a month. Until he gets better, jordoncooper.com is just going to lay dormant. Thanks for reading and your prayers.

Doctors don't know what is going on. He is on an urgent list to see a specialist but that is a month away. Pray for sleep and some answers from the doctors.

jordon exits blogging until further notice per wendy.

Top Ten Jesus Books

This one is impossible. Why? So many books on Jesus have been truly ground-breaking and paradigm-challenging, and I've limited myself to ten. This list is the top ten Jesus books that I like to read and from which I have learned so much.

Scot McKnight lists his choices in his continuing series of "Best Books."

Barna goes Transpo

This just hit my radar screen.

kudos, George.

via Bro Maynard.

a churchless faith

I’ve chosen to explore, in practice, what New Zealand Baptist Pastor and Sociologist Alan Jamieson terms “a churchless faith.” I’ve chosen to move away from particular types and experiences of church, and toward new possibilities, new hope, and new dreams.

Paul Fromont pursues a non-ecclesial faith.

ht to jordon.

Top Ten Books on Spiritual Formation

Scot McKnight begins a series of "Top Ten Books on..." with an entry on Spiritual Formation (focused on the individual).

Critiqued that it was individualistic, McKnight helpfully responded with another list that was more community focused.

now this is truly useful info

Did you know that by simply copying and pasting a UPS or FedEX tracking # into either a yahoo or google search engine, it will bring a up a link directly to the webpage tracking your package?

I am Paradox provides some great info!

Bono and Grace

"It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma."

The interviewer asks, What's that? "At the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one," explains Bono. "And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. . . . Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."

One of the 'mappers points us to a piece on Bono's faith.

Hiroshima Cover Up

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan almost 60 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years, all but a handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited. The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the U.S. military film remained hidden for nearly four decades.

from Editor and Publisher

Cedar Ridge Community Church selects New Senior Pastor

"It would be a dream come true for me if the Dyers can come. I would be proud in the best and deepest sense of the word to pass the baton of leadership to Matthew, and he and I both sense we would have a strong and lasting friendship as well as a solid working relationship. I support him with my highest and unqualified enthusiasm.

Brian McLaren

After a previous decision to free up their founding pastor to spend more time writing and national and international service, Spencerville, Maryland's Cedar Ridge Community Church, founded in 1982 by Brian McLaren and Bill Duncan, announces that they have selected a new Senior Pastor, Dr. Matthew Dyer.

Matthew Dyer formerly was an associate pastor for Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati, OH and a senior pastor of a Vineyard work in Exeter, England. He is British and a medical doctor. Dyer and his wife spent 1995 in Nicaragua working to build a mother and child health project.

sshields@faithmaps.org isn't...

..working while I switch servers. You can reach me @ sshields@gmail.com

UPDATE: sshields@faithmaps.org works now.

Scot McKnight on the Kingdom of God

On Scot McKnight's blog (Jesus Creed), he recently did a seven-part series exploring the biblical teaching on the Kingdom of God. In my humble opinion, this blog series is an excellent companion piece to the practical application on Kingdom living you'll find in Part 3 of his book, The Jesus Creed.

Since I feel that "The Kingdom of God" is perhaps the most crucial topic that a Christian is to understand (after all, it was what Jesus’ proclaimed as the “good news” or “Gospel!”), I asked Scot if I could publish the whole thing at my website for people to be able to download and read.

So here it is! It’s in pdf format, so you can print it out and give it the attention it deserves. Follow this link:

The Kingdom of God by Scot McKnight

Bob Robinson renders us a service!

He's also begun to post some of his own thoughts on the Kingdom.

Toward a Praxis of Christian Disagreement:
A lesson from Puzo and Coppola

- the necessity of humility

We in Christ's church sometimes don't do a very good job at disagreeing. Unless I am the smartest person on the earth, it stands to reason that in many instances it is a gift when someone else disagrees with me. We always need to be sensitive to our occasional need to receive that gift. Humility is absolutely required.

but what if we're right?

At other times when confronted with a contrary opinion, despite genuine humility and a spirit of teachability, we may still be reasonably certain that our position is the correct one and that our opposite is largely in error.

- the degree of passion

In that moment of controversy when we are 1) humble, 2) teachable, and 3) correct on the issue, we need to be intentional about the manner in which we come across. Sometimes it's necessary to be dramatic to make a point. Sometimes, when the issue is important enough, it's necessary to be so dramatic and passionate in the expressing of our position that we do so with the full realization that we risk the very relationship itself. Surely our Lord risked his relationship with some of the religious leaders of his day when he called some Pharisees and Sadducees a "brood of vipers" (Matthew 3:6-8).

But this should not be our default position for a few reasons:

• In some controversies, we may be on the wrong side of the position!
• The issue about which we are disagreeing may not be important enough to take such a virulent stand. Passionately expressed stands need to be lovingly strategic and not a matter of course.
  
• And we must always take care that our passion and virulence are not deriving from our egos and insecurities rather than from our commitment to the truth and our love for God and others. We must avoid a merely narcissitic desire to be right.
  
  

- an Olympic Calm

Many times - perhaps most of the time - in the midst of controversy we need to express what Clementine Churchill called Olympic Calm.

An cinematic example of this calm is seen in the character Tom Haden (Robert Duvall) when he speaks with a Producer named Woltz in the Godfather. (As Joe Fox (played by Tom Hanks) says in the movie You've Got Mail, "The Godfather answers all of life's questions." :) ).

The actor Johnny Fontaine had approached Don Corleone because he wanted a part in a movie being produced by Woltz. The Godfather promised him the role and sent his consigliere - Tom Haden - to Hollywood to handle the matter. Here is how the scene played out just after Tom makes his request:

WOLTZ

Now listen to me, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch! Let me lay it on the line for you and

your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie! I don't care how many -

- daigo guinea WOP greaseball gumbahs come out of the woodwork!

TOM

I'm German-Irish...

WOLTZ

Well let me tell you something my Kraut Mick friend, I'm gonna make so much trouble for

you, you won't know what hit you!

TOM

Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer, I have not threatened you.

WOLTZ

I know almost every big lawyer in New York, who the hell are you?

TOM

I have a special practice; I handle one client -- Now you have my number; I'll wait for your

call -- By the way, I admire your pictures very much.

from the transcribed Puzo and Coppola script by J Geoff Malta

-----------------------------

Though the last sentence of this scene clearly communicates Hayden's demeanor, what you don't see in mere text is that the Don's attorney wasn't touched by Woltz' insults and raised voice. Hayden had grown up with the Corleone boys and was practically a son to the Don. He had absolutely nothing to fear from this powerful producer and knew it. He was so confident that at the end of this encounter, though he's just been insulted and rebuffed, he's calm and collected enough to compliment Woltz on his body of work.

When it comes to matters of the Kingdom, we also can speak with such Olympic Calm. We serve the Creator of the universe and within the church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. He has given us all that pertains to our life and we've no need to be anxious for anything.

There are surely critical times when love for God and others may demand that we raise our voice or endanger a relationship (and even here, there can be an inner calm born of our conviction and security). But many times, we are in a position to dispassionately stay above the controversy and be the voice of reason and perspective.

picture via MSNBC from Paramount

the joys of personal publishing - a caution

In an earlier time, an editor or someone with a sober second thought would have looked at it before it was published in a boring journal that no one reads. Now we hit "publish" and the entire world knows.

jordon provides a wise cautionary ab blogging and the immediacy afforded by virtual technology.

Godthreads

music has provided a number of Godthreads for me. before i was a jesus-follower i think the closest i ever got to the feeling of transcendence in worship was at concerts.

lately, i've been totally enjoying xmradio and reconnecting with music. i haven't put it in a car yet; i'm listening to it thru my pc. i signed up for it - ab $8 a month - after trying it free for 3 days (you can try it without giving a credit card). the main reason i like it is that it's a great way to get exposed to new music.

if you try it, it works better if you listen to it thru windows media player 'cause you can use the built-in equalizer. also, be sure to set the settings to "high bandwidth" for better fidelity. it's not as good as what you get in your car (digital satellite) but it's pretty good.

shieldsplace.org is no more

Because a couple of our most visited articles had been hosted at shieldsplace.org, I thought that I should post here that I've decided to let the domain go. In recent years I had been primarily using it for family pics and with the proliferation of multiple free sites avail for this nowadays, I don't even use it for that. So the following articles previously on shieldsplace.org have new locations that can be found by following the links below. I've put them on faithmaps.org, which I'm in the processing of redesigning (with help) so for the moment below is the only location where you will find them linked.

• A Primer on Leadership
  based on The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner
  
  
• Meetings that Make a Difference
  
  
• Characteristics of Outstanding Organizations:
  A Summary of and Interaction with Built to Last by Collins and Porras
  
  
• Mediating a Conflict Resolution Session
  
  
• The Thinking of Peter Senge
  
  
• A Review of George Gilder's Men and Marriage
  
  
• A Review of FutureWealth
  A brief treatment of the wonderful book on the declining cost of information by Francis McInerney
  and Sean White
  
  
• A Primer on Project Management
  A simple outline based on Eric Verzuh's Fast Forward MBA in Project Management
  
  

aagghh!!

jesus creed is gone! (hopeful just down).

scot is so prolific, i personally can't possibly keep up. but i want it back!

Alan Hirsch Speaks to the Forge Paper - Emergent Village Discussion

Stephen Said interviews Alan Hirsch in a podcast on this topic.

Report of McLaren Clarifying Theological Positions

An astonishingly wide-ranging summary of clarifications of Brian McLaren's theological positions can be found in a Paul Harrison Amazon.com Book Review of DA Carson's Becoming Emergent with the Emerging Church.

Brian also interacts directly with the Paul Harrison review here.

ht to Sivin Kit for the heads up.

Forge, Emergent and the Emerging Church

Duncan Macleod does a great around the room regarding the recent posting and then pulling of the Forge document in response to DA Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.

ht to Brother Maynard for drawing our attention to this.

i love tony sheng's blog because...

....while I'm writing about emerging he actually emerges.

you go tony!

jen lemen exits

dj chuang archives for us jen lemen's last post.

jordon cooper

After being incredibly sick this last week, something is going wrong with Jordon's eyes. We don't know what it is but it is causing periods of blindness. The pain in his hands and feet has gotten worse. According to Jordon, it feels like Circa 1850 has been painted on his hand and feet and you have an idea of what it is like. Some other bad medical news has kind of dampened the mood around here.

wendy cooper updates us on jordon. pls keep praying.

wise words on marital fidelity and adultery

Perhaps in all our talk of romance and candlelight, we should re-emphasize that sometimes the romance is deferred, sometimes the fireworks are postponed. Perhaps rather than always pointing to the example of a sexy young married couple, we should point our older teenagers and young married couples to the eighty-seven year old man who has been wheeling his wife into the congregation every Sunday for thirty years, since she lost the use of her arms and legs in a stroke, or to the sixty year-old woman who faithfully shaves the face of her Alzheimer's-riddled husband, even as he curses and swats at a woman he doesn't remember.

russell moore reminds us of things forgotten and quite unfashionable.

An Exploration of the Emerging Church in the United States

When Will Sampson, Steve Knight, Nick Ciske, DJ Chuang, Aaron Flores and I recently served on a panel on blogging at the Internet Evangelism in the 21st Century Conference, I had the chance to visit some of the other presenter's modules. Aaron's on vlogging was one of the very finest.

He's decided to release to the public his recent graduate research on emergers in the US.

Brian McLaren Comments on DA Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church

Darryl Dash points out that Brian has commented on Dr. Carson's book on its Amazon page.

Todd Hunter on Realized Potential

What are places of realized potential?

The art of leadership is liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible. Thus the leader is the “servant” of his followers in that he removes the obstacles that prevent them from doing their job. In short, the true leader enables his or her followers to realize their full potential.
The driving force in our organizations ought not to be goal achievement or asset management or quantifiable growth, important as these are. Rather, our society badly needs organizations and people that move relentlessly toward reaching their potential.

Places of realized potential:

Are inclusive
Are open to change, contrary opinion, the mystery of potential, involvement, unsettling ideas and risk-taking
Offer people opportunity to grow
Offer the gift of challenging work
Shed obsolete baggage
Help people decide what needs to be measured
Heal people with trust, caring and “forgetfulness”
Leaders who create places of realized potential listen well and “see” what is really going on (pain, heartbreak, achievement)
Leaders of places of realized potential specialize in trust

Todd plays off Max DePree for a nice post.

We had earlier teased out a bit DePree's vision for holistic community here.

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch response to DA Carson's Critique of the Emerging Church precipitates some controversy

andrew jones lets us know about the Australian group Forge's to DA Carson's latest book.

The original report has now been deleted as a result of the controversy it quickly precipitated.

Some thoughts:

I've been reading Willard Sterne Randall's book George Washington: A Life. One of the most significant American developments during Washington's two terms was the birth of the party system in the United States, with Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists on one side and their emphasis on a strong central government, and Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans (technically the Democratic-Republicans in distinction from the modern group) on the other who took a more minimalist view of federal control.

Washington just hated this.

He was very anti-party and was constantly working as a mediator between these opposing elements within his very own cabinet. He counseled his cabinet to remember that they were Americans first.

As long-time readers of emergesque and faithmaps and my Next-Wave articles know, I've done a bit of work consulting, training, teaching, and mediating in the area of conflict resolution. One of the personal results of that focus has been for me to strive to not be drawn into conflict in the first place. Some of this I learned from Brian McLaren himself who has and shows a commendable longing for the high road.

Sometimes conflict is unavoidable and sometimes, even, one should intentionally take actions that can reasonably be predicted to be controversial. But many, many times, different perspectives debilitate into conflicting egos. That - in my opinion - is what can make party so horrible and dangerous to both community and truth.

There is only one antidote: humility. This expresses itself

• by focusing on the substance of what's being said and setting aside ego and party.
• by provisionally and hypothetically assuming the other person is completely correct
• by evaluating that hypothesis
• by sifting out what is true and
• either embrace it enthusiastically or - if necessary - to refute or, in many cases, both! Many times wholesale rejection of a point of view is inappropriate. Surely something of worth is being said.
  

Now, that being said, if you will read the comments on Andrew's original blog as they are developing through today, I think you will observe that we are beginning to see this humility on all sides. Bravo!

I originally wrote The Emerging Storm to suggest ways the ec might handle critique from without. It's obvious that we will need to use the same principles (and others) to handle critique from within!

I suggest how we handle the controversy may be more important than that the controversy itself.

A Poll for Readers of Emergesque

Would you in comments let me know with which of these statements you agree?

Statement #1 - Stephen, most of the time when you link to folks, I already have seen it because you tend to link a lot to A-List Emerging Church Bloggers.

Statement #2 - Stephen, thanks for your linking because it usually is the first time I'm seeing whatever it is that you are talking about.

Thanks everyone. I just don't want to waste your time with redundant linking.

And I think this may be the very first time I've posted something and not linked to anything!! :)

New Blogger: Ben Witherington III

si johnston lets us know that ben witherington - professor of new testament at asbury theological seminary and author - has entered the blogosphere.

see his full cv here and his website.

And now he can add to his cv a really cool review of the Fantastic Four.

Breaking News: Scottie Beams Up

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and movies who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died Wednesday. He was 85.

link

the size of the gospel

I'm less afraid of a big gospel than I am of a little gospel.

Scot McKnight invites us to an interesting exercise.

I just received today from Amazon Scot's Jesus Creed. I have a little Wenger leather notepad that I carry everywhere with me in my back pocket. I had just finished writing down a quote from Rick Warren that Scot includes in his book:

Live minus love equals zero.
The best use of life is love.
The best expression of love is time.
The best time to love is now.

when my youngest - Alia Noelle (5) - walked up to me:

Daddy, want to play cards?

You can guess my response.

Thanks Scot.

darren rouse is making $10,000 a month blogging

jordon helpfully provides us with the heads up ab this.

The ESV folks suggest...

...a very fine idea.

the 50 most influential churches

The 2005 survey was sent to 2,000 church leaders with the goal of ranking the nation’s fastest growing churches and churches with more than 2,000 weekend attendance. The 127 churches nominated for the 50 Most Influential Churches survey were located in 32 states and represented 27 affiliation groups and/or denominations. The term affiliation is used to include networks of unaffiliated, independent churches.

steve mccoy points us to church report's list.

the one commercial...

...was nominated for an emmy!

the emerging church, emergent and the uk

jason clark posts some affirmations, focus points, and values in response to a June Emergent-UK gathering. he also links to a history of emergent in the uk which I had never noticed before.

jesus outside the box

after starting out as an anonymous blog, rebecca has finally outed herself as one of my best friends.

:)

the calvinists take on emergent village

andrew jones expresses a nuanced appreciation of Modern Reformation's recent issue devoted entirely to emergent village. He notes

• that the article focuses on emergent rather than the emerging church (not that the two are mutually exclusive)
• that though its a Calvinist publication, it doesn't dive into the interesting ec moves in Calvinist circles.
  

The 50 Best Christian Places to Work

in case you're looking...

according to Christianity Today.

Clinton goes Transpo

"If you come to my meeting, at the end I want you to make a commitment," Clinton said. "If we did one of these every year at the opening of the UN ... and these commitments were made and kept for a decade, I think it would change the world."

link

New Wiki Defn of "Emerging Church"

Andrew Jones lets us know about this and likes it.

bono, geldof and one react to G8's plans to double aid

you can find all the reactions on the one.org blog.

The Gift of Poverty

The gift of my family's poverty is that I am discovering what really matters. And, for the most part, what matters isn't stuff. I don't miss buying clothes or eating out very much. I do miss going out on dates with my husband and traveling. I've discovered that experiences and relationships are what really matter to me.

In a similar way, the poverty of soul I experienced while in the institutional church was a poverty of meaningful experiences and authentic, intimate relationships.

I was surrounded by church-stuff: programs, big buildings, professional staff... and in their midst I wandered around lost, trying to articulate my grief. I didn't need a program. I didn't need a small group or outreach event. I didn't need praise choruses, self-help sermons or free coffee and donuts. I needed to experience God.

I eventually did find God, but it was outside of church....

jesus outside the box has some great things to say in response to her reading of Affluenza.

Bono posts to One Blog

10 million people alive by 2010, saved from malaria, from death by a mosquito bite. That's just one part of this. $25 billion for Africa. To the 1.4 million people who joined ONE. To the million people who turned up at the museum in Philly: You did that!

link

jordon update

According to the doctors, the neuropathic pain (pain in my nerve endings) is permanent and chronic.

pls pray for jordon cooper.

jesus outside of the box

rebecca has been reading jason's blog and has some interesting things to say.

you can get the christian out of the church, but can you get the church out of the christian?

i realize that what jason clark wrote today might make some folks mad, but it did remind me of a brian mclaren statement made some time ago in reference to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Life Together.

Bonhoeffer wisely warns Christians about the dangers of “wish-dreams” about community, ideals and dreams of community that become idolatrous, tempting one to love the ideal or dream more than one loves the actual people in one’s community. Having switched our focus of affection from the people themselves (with all their faults, annoyances, and idiosyncracies), and having bonded instead to our ideal or wish-dream, we are tempted to hate the people who fail to cooperate in seeing our ideal fulfilled as we might wish. Thus we blame them for sabotaging our vision of ideal (or authentic, or Biblical, or whatever other adjective identifies we might insert) community, blinding ourselves to the self-sabotaging hatred or resentment that lies within our own heart, all the while waving the banner of our ideal in “righteous” indignation.

as I told one of my dearest friends yesterday, the church is screwed up 'cause I'm screwed up - but I believe - actually I've staked my life on - that neither are screwed up irredeemably.

the post-emerging church?

for me, i am leaning towards the "postemerging.

john o'keefe recently posted his thoughts on the post-emerging church.

andrew jones responds with

As for the concept of "post-emerging" (Ginkworld), it may be helpful to think of emerging church in 3 stages:
1. Submerging - those going deep into culture to listen, think, pray, and share the gospel among the emerging culture.
2. Emerging - When the new church structures begin to rise up and take shape organically inside the culture, a process that will often be described as having "emergent characteristics" and displaying "emergent behavior".
3. Converging - When the new church structures begin to connect to the other existing structures, local and global, and form part of the web that is the body of Christ.
Of course, if you present these options to churches, they will normally choose the one that is most advanced and complete, no matter where they are in this process. But it might help those who have been going 15 years and are now part of the church fabric, despite growing up with emerging culture people.

We had also addressed this earlier in a Next-Wave article - The emerging church, the church, and the post-emerging church

COVER STORY:
The Emerging Church, Part One
July 8, 2005 Episode no. 845

Dan Brennan, one of the 'mappers, just let me know that the transcript for this recent PBS special is now online.

Vintage Catalyst 2005

Some of the Speakers are

• Andy Stanley
• Erwin McManus
• Malcolm Gladwell
• Donald Miller

Live 8 Artists on Demand

America Online has put up videos of various Live8 artists on their site.

Help for Africa from the G8

With a last-minute pledge from Japan, Blair won a key victory, announcing that aid to Africa would rise from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010.

In a separate joint statement on terrorism, the leaders pledged to new joint efforts to combat terrorism in light of the London bombings. Among those commitments was cooperating in ways to improve the safety of rail and subway travel.

Blair lost his push to get all summit countries to commit to boosting foreign aid to an amount equal to 0.7 percent of national income by 2015. Instead, a summit document said the European Union had agreed to that support but did not mention the United States.

President Bush had refused to be bound by the 0.7 percent target. The United States is currently giving 0.16 percent of national income, the smallest percentage of any of the G-8 countries.

AP Reports on this development from the G8 meeting in Scotland

Reminder: The Emerging Church on PBS

"Washington, D.C., June 27, 2005 - RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, the award-winning newsmagazine program hosted by Bob Abernethy and produced by Thirteen/WNET, will present a special series on a new movement in Protestant Christianity -- "The Emerging Church" -- to be included in programs distributed Friday July 8 and July 15 to PBS stations nationwide at 5 p.m. ET (check local listings)

In this two-part report, correspondent Kim Lawton examines how some evangelical and mainline Protestants are rethinking Christianity for a new generation."

Anthony Jones reminds us. More on this can be found here.

The London Bombing

I cant help but notice that the nations most terrible bombing on Thursday came immediately after its greatest commitment to justice on Wednesday, an incredible high peak of a nation acting godly and committing itself to a scale of justice and generosity never seen before. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Andrew Jones comments.

Amazon.com turns 10

This week marks Amazon.com's 10th anniversary.

We interview Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Bezos.

It's difficult for me to believe that a company that - quite frankly - has become such a big part of my life is only a decade old. Amazon.com's Advanced Search Page is one of only 11 Bookmarks in my Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar. Often when I am researching a specific topic, I do a search sorting by most purchased book. I also rely a good bit on the reader reviews. And more and more, I buy used books through Amazon.com.

The other day a friend of mine talked about having a hard time finding a particular book in any local bookstore. I gave a quizzical look; such talk to me is as archaic as complaining that wooden spokes are loose on the covered wagon.

I also find it fascinating that as the cost of information is declining, the previous generation's primary information medium - the book - continues to go on strong. Just as the VCR only increased the appetite for movies in the theatre, despite much hand wringing, so also the internet seems to have increased the appetite for books.

Creator of The Stockdale Paradox Dies

During the Vietnam War, [James] Stockdale was a Navy fighter pilot based on the USS Oriskany and flew 201 missions before he was shot down on Sept. 9, 1965. He became the highest-ranking naval officer captured during the war, the Navy said.

Stockdale was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, known as the "Hanoi Hilton." His shoulders were wrenched from their sockets, his leg had been shattered by angry villagers and a torturer, and his back was broken. But he refused to capitulate.

Rather than allow himself to be used in a propaganda film, Stockdale smashed his face into a pulp with a mahogany stool.

"My only hope was to disfigure myself," Stockdale wrote in his 1984 autobiography "In Love and War." The ploy worked, but he spent the next two years in leg irons.

After Ho Chi Minh's death, he broke a glass pane in an interrogation room and slashed his wrists until he passed out in his own blood. After that, captors relented in their harsh treatment of him and his fellow prisoners.

See the Washington Post Obituary

"Who am I? Why am I here?"

It's sad that this significant man is today mostly remembered for these words during a VP debate when he was Ross Perot's running mate rather than for the true achievements of his life.

My primary introduction to James Stockdale came not from Perot but from Jim Collins in his wonderful Good to Great where he talked about The Stockdale Paradox. We briefly mentioned this in our bullet point summary of Good to Great and, primarily, in our earlier comparison of the Stockdale Paradox and the "Flexible Optimism" of Dr. Martin Seligman.

In a nutshell the Stockdale Paradox marries a hard look at the cold realities of the current situation with an absolute commitment that all will work out well in the long run. Stockdale said that the folks that died in POW camp were not those who said, "We'll get out by Christmas" but rather those who said, "We'll get out but I have no clue when."

Admiral Stockdale will be missed.

Pink Floyd @ Live8

I'm perfectly aware that the purpose and significance of Live8 extended far beyond the interesting reunion after 20 years of Pink Floyd. Nevertheless, Floyd fans might be interested in the audio interviews of David Gilmore and Nick Mason about the event available here.

The Motivation for the English Standard Version

We thought that, in the providence of God, there was room for a Bible translation that would be committed for a word-for-word or essentially literal philosophy of translation, but that still tried, perhaps more accurately than any previous translation, to maintain clarity and readability and beauty in the English language.

We’re thankful for all of those other translations, and I know that they have been used by God. But we’re hopeful that this one might even, by God’s blessing, be somewhat of an improvement—certainly in clarity, and in accuracy, and in beauty and readability. When all those factors are taken together, that could then become a Bible that would be used throughout the church. There wouldn’t be just one Bible for children and another one for one denomination or another denomination, or this generation or that, but an accurate and readable Bible that could be used by all generations: in a church, it could be used in Sunday School classes, it could be used in adult Bible studies, it could be used for meditating and memorizing, and then could be used for the public preaching text of the church as well.

So that then, if a church goes this route and has one standard Bible used throughout the church—that the pastor is preaching from that Bible, the adults are studying from that Bible in their Bible studies, the children are memorizing from that Bible (not that they wouldn’t consult other translations from time to time as well). But there would be a standard base of a reliable translation that people would gain familiarity with throughout the church. And we think it would be a wonderful benefit to churches if that would happen.

Wayne Grudem on the ESV Blog

Brian McLaren (briefly) responds to Al Mohler and DA Carson

...on his website, primarily by pointing to the responses of others.

Are you Out of Control?

Great quote from Rick Warren:

"If there is an area of your life that you can't talk about, then it's out of control"

ht to Rich Johnson.

Next Wave Interview of Emergent Village's New National Coordinator

And let's be honest, it sounds pretty arrogant to claim to be a movement. On the other hand, I think we have to remember that perception is reality. The fact that all of the recent media attention has basically bequeathed the title "movement" upon all of us. Many from within existing church bodies and structures as well as those who have been disenfranchised with the American church talk about the influence that Emergent has had upon their faith, and you can imagine the number of emails I get that begin, "I work at what I would consider an 'emergent' church in Anytown, USA." Personally, I think that's great, and I have been won over to Brian's opinion that if a person or a church claims to be Emergent, we say, Welcome aboard!"

Charlie Wear interviews Tony Jones.

Ken Archer Reviews DA Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church


Highlights:

• First, Carson’s favorable portrait of the realist option, as based in a Christian evangelical project led by Descartes whose sole error lay in overestimating what finite humans can know, overlooks serious issues with this option that any new synthesis must deal with.
  
  
• Second, Carson's third way beyond the false antithesis of absolute realism and subjectivism - what he calls soft postmodernism - is no third way at all, as it avoids answering the tough questions of either realism or subjectivism.
  
  
• Third, an obvious place to search for a third way out of the modern-postmodern antithesis – premodern thought – is obscured by Carson’s quick and faulty presentation of premodern thought.
  
  
• Fourth, Carson critiques a primarily pastoral movement, the Emerging Church, for what is a failure of academics.
  

Ken Archer, posts his full review of Carson's latest book.

extreme contingency

you're already walking on water; don't be distracted by the wind.

²⁸And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." ²⁹He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. ³⁰But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." ³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" ³²And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

Matthew 14:28-33 (English Standard Version)

The other night as I felt myself slipping a little deeper into my foxhole I was reading through Matthew and really felt that the Lord had directed me to this particular gospel pericope. As I walked away from the text, I meditated on the importance of keeping my eyes on Jesus not matter what dangerous distractions I find in my environment.

But it occurred to me this morning that even though Peter became frightened by the wind, he was still walking on water. In other words, the wind itself didn't really make his situation more tenuous than it already was!

Similarly, whether we are conscious of it or not, we all are always extremely contingent on God - for every heartbeat, for every breath, for every bite of food, even for our desire for Him. Wisdom and peace come simply as we make ourselves aware of this fact, coupled with our acceptance of God's outrageous love for us. As the winds whip up and we do not sink, we are simply given more ample evidence of our contingency.

The Emergent Matrix: A New Kind of Church
“We realized very early on that we weren’t going to find the intellectual resources we needed in the evangelical world, so we were either going to have to create them or borrow them,” notes McLaren. “And it turned out that a lot of us were reading the same people, who would be more respected in the mainline world, such as Walter Brueggemann, Jürgen Moltmann and Stanley Hauerwas. What happened is we started to identify ourselves as postconservative and then we found out that there was almost a parallel movement going on in the postliberal world. And the affinities that we had were very, very strong.” ...

Emergent evangelicals had bumped up against the limits of what George Lindbeck has called their “cognitive-propositional” approach to doctrine—faith as assent to propositional truths—but unlike earlier generations they no longer believed their only other option was to become traditionally “liberal.” Postliberalism, with its emphasis on culture and language, narrative and community, character and virtue, opened possibilities for being theologically serious and doctrinally orthodox while avoiding the restrictive biblicism of the evangelical world.

The challenges faced by evangelicals and mainliners are in some ways mirror images of each other. McLaren observes that “conservatives tend to be rigid theologically and promiscuous pragmatically and liberals tend to be rigid methodologically and a lot more free theologically.” His proposal is simple: “Maybe we could trade.”

interesting article by Scott Bader-Saye, associate professor in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Scranton, on emerging.forministry.com.

Alan Jamieson joins Prodigal Kiwi

Paul Fromont invites Alan Jamieson - the author of Churchless Faith - to join his blog.

ht to jordon.

the future of the southern baptist convention

michael spencer posts an interesting and wide-ranging post on the future of the sbc. i found the post to be educational in terms of the internal dynamics of the southern baptists.

iowa becomes one!

Today Governor Vilsack of Iowa signed a proclamation making Iowa the first State of ONE.

the one blog announces.

The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.

Proverbs 29:7 (NIV)

If you haven't seen the amazing one video, pls click here.