LOS
ANGELES, MINNEAPOLIS -- Synagogue 3000 (S3K) and Emergent have
announced a ground-breaking meeting to connect Jewish and Christian
leaders who are experimenting with innovative congregations and trying
to push beyond the traditional categories of "left" and "right." This
will be the first conversation that brings them together to focus on
the enterprise of building next-generation institutions. Leaders from
across the United States will gather during the inaugural session of
the S3K Leadership Network's Working Group on Emergent Sacred
Communities, which takes place January 16-17, 2006, at the
Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley, California.
Prominent
Emergent Christian theologian Brian McLaren (_A New Kind of Christian_)
has met with Synagogue 3000's leadership three times in recent months
to discuss shared concerns, particularly surrounding attempts by
younger Christians and Jews to express their spiritual commitments
through social justice. "We have so much common ground on so many
levels," he notes. "We face similar problems in the present, we have
common hopes for the future, and we draw from shared resources in our
heritage. I'm thrilled with the possibility of developing friendship
and collaboration in ways that help God's dreams come true for our
synagogues, churches, and world."
S3K
and Emergent will convene pioneering rabbis, pastors, artists, and
leaders who are reaching out to the unaffiliated and others who are not
attracted to mainstream congregations. An open discussion with leading
clergy in mainstream synagogues will address the relationship between
the congregational establishment and emerging groups. An evening
lecture program will feature Emergent scholar Ryan K. Bolger (_Emerging
Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures_), in
dialogue with two renowned experts on Baby Boomer religion, Steven M.
Cohen (_The Jew Within_) and Wade Clark Roof (_A Generation of
Seekers_).
S3K
Senior Fellow Lawrence A. Hoffman, (_Rethinking Synagogues: A New
Vocabulary for Congregational Life_, forthcoming 2006) stressed the
importance of building committed religious identity across faith lines.
"We inhabit an epic moment," he said, "nothing short of a genuine
spiritual awakening. It offers us an opportunity unique to all of human
history: a chance for Jews and Christians to do God's work together,
not just locally, but nationally, community by community, in shared
witness to our two respective faiths."
According
to Emergent-U.S. National Coordinator Tony Jones, this meeting has
historic possibilities. "As emerging Christian leaders have been
pushing through the polarities of left and right in an effort to find a
new, third way, we've been desperate to find partners for that quest,"
he said. "It's with great joy and promise that we partner with the
leaders of S3K to talk about the future and God's Kingdom."
Not
only are many Jewish religious communities looking to the experiences
of Christian innovators, especially in the context of worship that
engages the unaffiliated, but they are seeing a similar paradigm shift
from the Baby Boomer individualistic seeker mode to an emergent
Generation X/post-GenX search for spirituality in community. S3K
Director of Research Shawn Landres, himself a GenXer active in an
emergent Jewish congregation, said, "We hope to learn from their
experience and also to build bridges by engaging and challenging one
another."
Synagogue 3000 is a catalyst for excellence, empowering congregations and
communities to create synagogues that are sacred and vital centers of
Jewish life. Its purpose is to make synagogues compelling moral and
spiritual centers-- sacred communities--for the twenty-first century.
From offices located at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and
the Hebrew Union College in New York, the S3K staff has created a
national congregational leadership network and is developing a
synagogue studies institute. The S3K Leadership Network comprises two
working groups, one on Spiritual Leadership and the other on Emergent
Sacred Communities.
Emergent gathers reflective practitioners and engaged scholars for
conversation and missional action around the issues of Christian
theology, practice, spirituality, justice and church life. The network
developed in the 1990's and includes a wide range of Christian leaders
from progressive evangelical, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic
backgrounds.