Five Years Ago, Five Years From Now

by Tony Jones

Almost exactly five years ago, a group gathered at my family cabin in northern Minnesota to talk about the future of this thing we were/are a part of.  We were in the process of leaving the protective umbrella of Leadership Network, and we were branching out on our own.  As you can see, sitting arond the table, were a great group of people: me (with son, Tanner), Brad Cecil, Sally Morgenthaller, Brian McLaren, Al Roxburgh, Todd Hunter, Danielle Shroyer, and Tim Conder; Doug Pagitt and Julie Jones are standing in the back, and the inimitable Rudy Carrasco took the picture.  Jason Mitchell is not pictured.

Recently, Danielle found her notes from that meeting, and here's what they say:

Initial Musings:

Something's not working.  Why?

How can we be honest about our faith and our doubt?

We have expanding misgivings about our beliefs, our belief systems and practices.

We think some of our beliefs are wrong, we think some of our systems are unhelpful, and some of our practices are misguided.

We retain confidence in Jesus but are convinced that a thorough revolution, re-evaluation, re-formation, deconstruction, reconstruction of our ways are needed.

 

alternative space----recover the story----transmit to the world

 

Goals/Dreams:

conferences

forums/dialogues

books- joint projects as well as individual

consulting to churches, denominations

new churches

mentoring artists

more networking

learning structures/training centers

monastic communities

journal/periodical

website

seminary/parachurch presence

media/arts influencers

mentoring emerging leaders

 

Top 3 First Year Goals:

conference

learning structures

journal/periodical/website

We're having another meeting next week, five years and two weeks later, again at my cabin.  Some faces in the current Emergent Coordinating Group are the same, and there are some new faces.  We have lots to celebrate, five years later.  Much of what we dreamed has come to pass.  But we still stand at a liminal moment, one in which the church needs thorough revolution if it hopes to stand as God's partner in the Grand Re-Creation.

So we ask for your prayers as we meet next week.  If you know someone on the ECG, and you have some ideas about what we should aim for in the next five years, drop us an email.

Comments

[Sivin]

thanks for giving us - more context - into your journey thus far especially as Emergent USA!

[will]

What is so amazing about these notes is to see how many of the dreams have come to be realized. Beautiful! Thanks to every one of you for your faithfulness and may each of us who feels connected to Emergent moving forward sense the same need to be faithful to this work of God.

[Existential Punk]

Tony, I see the praxis being worked out, but what I would like to see come about over the next five years is more theology and more being spoken on the "hows" to read and apply Scripture in our postmodern context. Also, I'd like to see less exclusivity when it comes to the dialogue of a Ph.D vs. a D.Min. Some of us have been gifted with the abilities to pursue a rigorous Ph.D program and some of us have not, thus we are given the opportunity to pursue a D.Min. Titles should not be our aim. I do not like this arrogant tone in emergent regarding this. When I am asked, "Why are you pursuing a D.Min", i should not feel like i have to defend myself. Emergent is about inclusivity, right? Sorry, Tony, but i think some Ph.D rhetoric is boorish. I am in no way stupid, but i have not been gifted to pursue a Ph.D. Because of this, people like myself who choose to pursue a D.Min should not be minimized. Thanks for all you contribute to EC! i will be praying. Pax, Adele

[Bob Robinson]

You've go my prayers as well.
It will be exciting to see the "notes" from this meeting come to fruition, as God guides the path of this thing.

[Anthony]

I'll be a prayin for you guys. Thanks for your passion and vision.

[Daniel]

I encountered your "movement" when it was mentioned on a young man's blog and it intriged me. I have not had much time to research you further, I've read mostly some of Mclarens writings and I think my brain is still burning. I'm kind of a goofy guy and I am inept at maintaining a high level of thinking that most people are intimidated by. My gift, you might say is explaining theology in my sunday school class, although I get laughed at alot for my wild ideas about God. I can tell my false humility is eeking out enough to be annoying and this brings me to one of my theological theories. God is a God of true humility. Jesus said take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart, so doesn't that mean that God has a heart of gentleness and humility? And couldn't you say that what is in the heart, or our motivations eventually are manifested outwardly and phyically tangible? An therefore all that Christ has done is a manifestation of the heart of God. And could you not therefore define agape love as the outward ,tangible manifestation of the heart of God.
He was a descendant of decievers, murderers, and prostitutes as well as a king. He was born into illegitimate circumstances in ahole in the ground where they kept animals. His birth was heralded to the sheperds and the magi had to go find him. He was from the town of Nazareth was baptized for the forgivness of sins and did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
So where does this leave me? I can tell you truthfully I struggled with this for quite some time trying to be humble like Jesus. It was just another law I was trying to keep. Oh yeah I am a sinner! Thats what I do best. I dont have humility, it's not there. I know what it is, I can imitate it, but it is not something that naturally occurs within my being. I learned humility through agreeing with God's law or my own I made up for myself that I was definitely a sinner. Could we define sin therefore as this lack of genuine humilty?
I think, and you might disagree, but more people will come to Christ when all other avenues are exasperated. You, me, we need to do more to create a process to exasperate those avenues. I the old days it was preaching fire and brimstone to convince people that they were dirty rotten sinners but it left alot of people hanging up on vices preached against. I don't know what to do to convince people of God's love and our sinfulness except for massive public preaching making the the sinfulness of people come to a head in perscution of the saints and God pouring out his Spirit.

[Dan-D from Canada]

Daniel -

I'm not sure what you mean by "massive public preaching making the the sinfulness of people come to a head in perscution of the saints and God pouring out his Spirit." I think that at this stage it would take alot more than preaching to tick everyone off enough to persecute christians (plenty of us already do that, with mixed results). And I'm pretty sure seeking persecution is not a good idea. Unless I'm mistaken, persecution in the past happened during times when Christians were the minority. This is not the case in America today! I'm from Canada, where our Christian population is smaller compared to yours, and no one's tried to boil me yet.

I do see where your coming from, and I applaud you for trying to seek after God's purpose in this age. I think a good way for us to go about doing that is to stand up against the "powers of this age," ie. systemic evil on a government/cultural/economical level. Standing up against consumerism, oppression, and social injustice seems to make more sense than doing another "hellfire and brimstone tour" - which I think you made clear in your statement was likely not something to try again. Unless I missed your point - feel free to correct me on anything I misinterpreted from you.

Blessings from one Dan to another,

Dan-D from Canada

[MOL Junior]

tony, i thought you were taking a break from blogging?

danielle, come back to dallas. journey needs you.

question: does mclaren's hand grasp mean that he never stops praying?

prediction: the exclusion of jason mitchell from these types of meetings will lead to the downfall of all things emergent.

viva la brad!

love
mol junior

[jesuslovesemergent]

why no link for danielle? this is an outrage. danielle is very much worthy of a link by her name.

[MOL Junior]

the fact that danielle is the only name that did not receive a link is insulting and offensive. danielle should have her e-mail linked at least...or maybe princeton.edu, or journeydallas.com, or baylor.edu...c'mon tony you can be more creative than that, my friend.

viva la danielle!

[Dan-D from Canada]

Perhaps tony didn't have her email, or maybe she requested hers not be included. Outrage? Offensive? Come on, folks. I'm sure that this was not intended as a slight, or a sexist thing. Did you not notice sally's webpage linked? At worst this was an unfortunate oversight, and I'm pretty sure there was no malice intended.

Let's get this conversation back on track - what can we contribute to the conversation? What could we envision for the next five years? And how can we support those who are putting their livelihoods/careers on the line for this conversation?

[Steve K.]

Thanks for the history, Tony. I'm praying for ya'll this week.

My one comment/thought/urging/plea would be for continued and increased movement towards developing diversity (of all types) within Emergent leadership. (I say "continued and increased" because I know the vision is already there for this.) I know it needs to be natural/authentic, but it also needs to be intentional -- and for all our desire to be non-hierarchical/relational/organic it is valuable to see these concerns modeled by the leaders within Emergent because, for better or for worse, all eyes are on you ;-)

Shalom,
Steve K.