As I say in the E/C at least once a month, Emergent
exists primarily to get people together. At the
root of our incarnational faith is face-to-face
meeting, sharing meals, conversation, and shared
worship. So I thought I'd lead off this year with
an E/C devoted exclusively to events. Now, Emergent
isn't hosting most of these, but these are our
friends, and we support what they're doing. Not
only that, you're sure to find old friends and make
new ones at these gatherings:
Cokesbury's Worship Connection will
be co-sponsoring a worship conference on January
17-19, 2006 in Grapevine, Texas with Dan Kimball as
one of the keynote speakers. The conference is open
to clergy, musicians, band members, lay speakers,
worship teams and anyone interested in planning
worship! For complete details please visit this
site.
The National
Pastors Convention is in San Diego, February
22-25. It's going to be a great time, not only
because it's in San Diego in February(!), but
because there is an entire track there devoted to
emerging
church issues. A Critical Concerns Course,
hosted by me, will be a two-day panel discussion
offering a array of views on the emerging church.
Then, there will be a host of seminars, late night
discussions, and book clubs for the rest of the
week. Even more importantly, there are sure to be
several less formal gatherings to talk about the
church and Emergent's role in it.
The Emerging
Church Conversation with John Franke at Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary is a regional gathering
taking place on February 9: John will give three
adresses to the PTS community, following by an
evening meeting with the Emergent Pittsburgh Cohort
(Contact BJ
Woodworth ([email protected]) for more
information on the cohort).
On April 28-29, 2006 the Conference
on Christianity in a Consumer Culture will be
held in Minneapolis. The purpose of the conference
is to bring together Christians from various
disciplines and theological traditions to offer
analysis of the way our consumer culture shapes
Christianity in America as well as to develop a
faithful Christian response to consumerism. Main
speakers for the conference are: Ron
Sider, Sondra
Ely Wheeler, Rodney
Clapp and Vincent
Miller; there will be and additional 16 breakout
sessions.
Worship
in the New Millennium: Why Are We Missing Our Best
Stuff? February 7-8, Phoenix. If you're looking
for a brief but intense opportunity to engage in
open, honest and frank discussions about creative
worship ministry leadership issues in this digital
age with a small group (99 max) of fellow sojourners
- then you're welcome to join us in the
conversational journey. In this day and age of a new
digital reality the potential for creative worship
ministry has never been greater but is often a
challenge to reconcile with leadership and
environment issues. Voices include Sally
Morgenthaler (Co-Creational Leadership), Rex Miller
("The Millennium Matrix") and Kevin Callahan ("Body
Language") plus your own!
Kairos: A Gathering of Community &
Conversation for
Friends in the Mid-Atlantic. Spend two days
discussing and dreaming about the church of the
future with Brian McLaren. This years Mid-Atlantic
Gathering will be held at Skycroft Retreat Center
(www.skycroft.org)
in Frederick, MD from April 17th
to April 19th. Past topics covered include
church-planting, spiritual formation, hermeneutics,
preaching, leadership, and a host of others. The
cost is $100/pp which includes bunk sleep
accommodations and food. Register and submit ideas
for discussion by e-mailing [email protected].
Mustard Seed Associates is sponsoring
The
Church Has
Left the Building. Come experience, connect
& create
the future one mustard seed at a time. The event
will be held April 28th & 29th of 2006 at Trinity
Methodist Church, Ballard, 6512 23rd Avenue
Northwest, Seattle, Washington 98117. For more
information,
check
out the blog for the event.
PAPA Fest 2006: People Against Poverty and
Apathy...a convergence of communities and
movements.
This will occur June 23-25 of 2006 in TN. Morning
sessions will be geared toward teaching, bible
studies, and panel discussions, pondering things
like community, theology, and peacemaking. In the
afternoons, we will have workshops and how to
sessions where folks can explore anything from
knitting and bike repair to drumming and massage. In
the evenings we will have some inspiring music,
circus festivities, and storytelling. This is an
event sponsored by the participants and will draw
together people from the Community of Communities
and new monasticism, the Christian Community
Development Association, Emergent, Jesus Radicals,
the Relational Tithe, Ekklesia Project and who knows
who else. It is being talked about as a mega-Family
Reunion of sorts. For more information or to sign up
to participate, contact Will Samson.
The Allelon
Summer Institute in Idaho in June will feature
Brian McLaren, John Franke, Al Roxburgh, and others.
Outside of North America? Brian
McLaren will be all over the world in 2006. Check
his site for his dates in other countries, and
the approriate links.
And one more thing: Harvard
education professor Howard Gardner has asked that we
point people to a survey he's conducting on whom
Americans trust. It's here,
and it takes about 10 minutes.
