Wednesday, June 15, 2005
2 recent emerging church web articles that I appreciate
One: Excellent response by Jordon Cooper to the consumeristic Ooze article “Behold I make all things stale and boring” and the provocative statement: After reading a bunch of Emergent Church type blogs recently I realized almost no one is saying anything new.
When talking about the future of the emerging church I often show an Adbusters video, supplied to me by Stephen Garner. In a bid to find identity, the person accessorises, seeking to be hip and cool by adding toys and gimmicks and new things. We live in a society which is based on selling the new. So in one sense it’s totally natural to see the same consumerism at work in a person’s approach to the blogging world.
Two: Thoughtful article by Alan Roxburgh (sent to me by ProdigalKiwi) on the emerging church in the context of the April Consult at Fuller. (At which a statement I made – Im not sure we are really as creative as we think. – became a context-less soundbite on quite a number of blogs – here, here, here and here).
As I read the article I reflected on my hope that the new of the emerging is not a panacea for stale and boring, but is the missional Image-ining of Christ . Such image-ining must take time. Such image-ining will search forward, backward and sideways, to our wired world, to our ancient roots and among cultures unlike ours. And such image-ining will often be found in unexpected crevices. Such is the kingdom.
My book has a postcard/chapter on creativity. It is positioned after a postcard/chapter on birth and midwiving. That’s deliberate – creativity emerging from the active image-ining breath of God.
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thanks for the links. great articles… even if our (VC’s… from Roxburgh article) strict missional order is not quite as strict or missional or orderly as we may like it to be!
Comment by aaron — June 17, 2005 @ 2:25 am
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah . The committee meeting is over.The Word IS Active.Moving water does not become stagnant.The channel is only useful if something is moving through it.
Comment by Vance — June 17, 2005 @ 5:07 pm
Vance, are you a mind-reader? I spent today sourcing irrigation pipe so we could run water through the church as we prayed for people this Sunday — water, channels 🙂
Comment by steve — June 17, 2005 @ 5:25 pm
No, but I know someone who has been trying to move living water around this planet for a few thousand years.Every now and then He gets a real gusher going but people always seem to block it up again.I think pretty soon He’s gunna blow the dam(n) wall and flood the place.
Comment by Vance — June 18, 2005 @ 8:25 am
Vance,
that’s wierd, you’re obviously not a mind reader, cos I know someone who promised never to flood the place again. And to show the lurrve they created a multicoloured symbol mixed with sun and rain.
Comment by steve — June 18, 2005 @ 8:59 am
true. sun and rain .nice mix fire and water.
“the knowlage of the Glory of the Lord shall cover the earth ‘as’ the waters cover the sea”.
Of coarse I don’t mean another literal flood.A covenant is a covenant.I spoke in a spiritual context.Whats a ‘lurrve’? If you mean love,then this flood is it ,and one thing this world needs is a flood of knowing God(is Love).My original point is that I think that God is about to open the wells of revival(living water)big time.So much that the underground river that we’ve been trying to tap into won’t need channels and pipes anymore but will ‘flood’the earth.” But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.34And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”I live in hope.
My toast has gone cold.
Comment by Vance — June 18, 2005 @ 6:20 pm