cohorts

The Basic Ingredients

While we in the emerging church conversation love to be ambiguous and anti-programmatic, dispelling all need for cookie cutters, sometimes we just have to offer a basic recipe. 

So here is our most basic recipe for baking a hot loaf of emergent cohortness:

1) One to two organizers/facilitators excited about local face-to-face conversations.

2) 4-5 other interested people who will form the dough

3) Add a good handful of constructive dialog (never add cynicism or angst)

4) If you decide this is going to be a loaf for a delicate palette add a good collection of emergent books like "Generous Orthodoxy" to start off the feast.  If this loaf is for those with advance and/or adventurous tastes, then throw in a cocktail of your own spices and ingredients (write your own theology, start a revolution!).

5) Place dough within a container (recommended: a consistent meeting place/time) and cover with some communication (recommended: a blog [see www.blogger.com for a free blog] and email list).

6) Let bake for about a month and see if the dough rises. 

...or in other word, find a couple of people, decide on what/when/where you want to do, create some communication, and then see where it leads.  And at any step of the process, email us and let us know where you are at and how we might help.

Starting a Cohort

By Tim Conder

Geoff Holscaw, Andrea Summers, Mike King, Rick Bennett, Laci Scott, and I have been working to lead Emergent's effort to develop regional learning communities and local gatherings that we call "cohorts."

We are enthusiastic and optimistic about the "localization" and "regionalization" of Emergent. Local conversations provide unique support, intimate knowledge of a ministry context, and relational learning opportunities that can be gifts for ministry leaders and spiritual travelers in a specific location. Regional communities offer opportunties for collaboration that might be too resource intensive for local communities. Each day we are hearing of new cohorts developing. We apologize as well that many have written looking for a local community only to find that one does not exist in their area. A common question we receive from those living in areas without a group concerns how to start a cohort.

There is no blueprint or template for doing so. I'll share a bit of our experiences in starting a new community ("Ekklesia") in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. We started with just a handful of friends (about 5) who were interested in discussing issues related to the emerging church. In our case, the original core were pastors and church planters who connected through national events like the Emergent Convention and Soularize. As we have started to grow, we have been intentional about searching our community for ministries that have emergent interests and inviting their leaders and participants to attend Ekklesia. As our group has started to grow just a bit, we have resisted the urge to be overly programmatic — "to do something together to legitimize our existence." Our initial focus has been relational and dialogical explorations. Since we didn't know each other at all, we often focus on the narrative of a specifc community in our monthly gatherings. We also have committed to learn and read together since this small group allows for comfortable dialogue and discussion. We began with Brian McLaren's "Generous Orthodoxy" as a common text. Even in our neophyte stage, many easy collaborations have occurred. Several of us have spoken at each other's ministry gatherings. Two of the communities in our original core are sharing space. Relationships are forming quickly that are becoming the basis of a thriving community.

This last year in San Diego at the Emergent/YS Convention, I had the privilege of connecting three folks in our cohort with Tim Keel, Mike King, and Ivy Beckwith who have all been very involved with Emergent on a national level. It was a delight to watch Tim Keel, a generous and gifted church planter, share his experiences with my friends from Raleigh. As a new church planter myself and in a cohort with several other beginning church planters, we have little experience to pool on the subject in our local gatherings. These kind of local/national relationships are part of Emergent's dream in developing local conversations. We hope that Emergent will be deeply effected by and responsive to the transitions of the church, innovations, and creative movement's of God's Spirit on the local level.

We're just starting out in Raleigh-Durham with our group. I'm sure there will be challenges and frustrations ahead. And certainly I understand that just finding a few interested folks in some communities may be difficult. But, this experience of community, learning, and collaboration has been a exciting and fruitful journey in our context.

The Life Cycle of a Cohort

By Geoff Holsclaw

Some of you are just beginning to form a cohort, while others have been journeying for a while.  But as you all know, life is very interesting as a one hosting an emergent cohort, usually because we are doing it in conjunction with other jobs and interests.  As one who started a cohort in Chicago over three years ago, here are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

1)  Regeneration:  My cohort has had a yearly life cycle, reinventing itself every Fall.  It almost feels that every year is a new beginning all over again.  There are new participants, new leaders, and new questions.  Our first year we met monthly, bringing in discussion leaders from various local seminaries.  The second year we did the same, but also started another gathering on the westside of town because a new leader stepped up and offered to lead it.  The third year we dissolved the initial monthly gathering (while continuing the new meeting on the westside) and aimed at beginning quarterly gathering that would run longer (5-6 hours) to accommodate those who were coming from a great distance.  Now here in the fourth year we are changing leadership quite a bit because new people are stepping up and people who have been around for a while need to back off.  All that to say, things are always changing.

2) Level: From the very beginning our cohort desired to be a place where advanced conversation could happen.  Whether that has happened is hard to tell.  But we have struggled to find an identity and place for both those who are just beginning the conversation, and those who are deeply immersed.  The way it played out for us is that our initial gathering was more advanced while the new gathering that met on the westside of town was more for beginners.  So we all have to ask what level is this cohort at, or where does it hope to be (which will depend largely on where the leaders are coming from)?

3) Interest vs. Involvement: Let’s just be honest, there will always be more interest than involvement concerning these cohorts.  Your email list will probably get larger, but your participation with still only run 10-40 people.  And that’s ok.  The people who make the time, and enter into tangible, face-to-face relationships are the people you want coming. Don’t plan things around those who won’t come unless Brian McLaren is in town. 

4) Geography:  For some this will not be a problem, but for others geographic distance becomes daunting.  For us in Chicago, it is really difficult to connect with all those who desire to be involved because some people need to drive over an hour to meet up.  This is one reason why creating multiple location in large cities might really pay off, but it can be a headache also.  For those in smaller cities, God bless you. 

5) Motivation:  Or lack of motivation.  To be totally honest, just about every summer (before the regeneration of the cohort) I would be ready to pack up on the whole cohort thing.  It took more time than I had available…It didn’t feel like anything important was happening…The people didn’t seem very committed.  But I always hung in there, something new would happen, and I would always be glad to see what was going on among the people.  And really above all, I have made incredible relationships with people I would never have know, and been able to walk with people through getting fired from ministry positions to then going off and planting a church.  Crazy things will happen through your cohort that will make it all worth it. 

Well, that’s enough for now. I hope some of this will aid you all as you begin/continue hosting emergent cohorts.

Cohort Blog

Welcome to Emergent's new Cohort blog. 

While still under construction (conceptually), this will be the priniciple place:

• For those interested in forming a cohort to find information
• For cohort leaders to connect and learn from each other
• And for communication between cohort leaders and the Emergent Coordinating Group