Another up/rooted.city summary

BTW, Helen has an excellent summary of the most recent up/rooted.city gathering over at the Conversation at the Edge blog. Check it out!

Trying Not To Be Boneheads - November up/rooted.city summary

This month's meeting of up/rooted.city was definitely a balm for my soul. I had spent the day cranky and living inside my head, replaying angry thoughts and worrying about the future. However, once I arrived at Wicker Park Grace, I was pulled out of my head because the other folks that were there invited me into their hearts as they told their stories.

Twelve of us shared apples, celery, caramel sauce, peanut butter and apple juice for a little over two hours as we talked. Four of us had attended the first meeting but eight of us were brand new to the gathering and the new dynamic was interesting and good. I liked hearing that all of the attendees were brought to the meeting through the internet somehow and that many folks were meeting with each other independently for lunch.

The long-distance award goes to Bill, Helen's dad, who came all the way from Oxford, England to meet with us. Bill said many interesting things, but I was most intrigued by the logic of one of his statements. He pointed out that since church attendance is so much higher in the US than in the UK, it's reasonable to assume that Christians have a fair amount of influence on the policy that the US makes. He then talked a little bit about our continued use of capital punishment, which he believes is barbaric. He pointed out that capital punishment must have the support of Christians in the US since we are such a large majority and he questioned how that could be when God commands us to have mercy as we have been shown mercy. His voice was an intriguing addition to the group.

The group included an atheist, an almost atheist, an agnostic, a former neo-gnostic, a couple of pastors, former and current evangelicals, former and current mainline protestants, and folks who are still looking for a way to describe their faiths. Beautifully, all of us are actively examining ourselves and the world for God. Over the course of the evening, we built trust with each other, telling stories and asking questions. I particularly appreciated Helen's good questions. We talked about literalism in biblical interpretation, the use of Christian music in schools as an art form, manipulation as evangelism, the teaching of some churches that "doubt is bad" and the funding of church plants, in addition to other topics.

The best question asked, in my mind, came from Steve, the self-proclaimed "atheist husband" of Lainie, who asked, "Wouldn't it be a more enjoyable world to live in if the Christian message that was heard came from Christians who weren't boneheads?"

Amen, brother. I think that's probably something everyone can get behind.

Out next meeting is Monday, December 17 at 7:00 at Wicker Park Grace. I look forward to the balm a new mix of people will bring in a holiday season that can be particularly hard for humans as we try to figure out how to follow God and celebrate Jesus in authentic ways.

-Rebecca

up/rooted city meeting on Monday, November 19 at 7:00

I'm excited to announce that our second meeting of of up/rooted city will take place on Monday, November 19.  We'll gather at 7:00 for tea and stories.  

Wicker Park Grace
@ Acme Art Works
1741 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

It's our intention to repeat our agenda from last month since it was so successful.  We'll continue getting to know one another, asking and answering questions of each other and creating a community of folks in the city who are interested in this new kind of Christianity and how we are living our lives through it.

There were lots of you out there who expressed disappointment that you weren't able to make it last time.  We look forward to seeing you on Monday, as well as those of you who were able to attend in October.

Please email me if you have any questions either at this address or at rebica (at) aol (dot) com.

In Service,
Rebecca

McLaren's "Everything Must Change Tour" Coming to Chicago - Volunteers Needed!

You may have already heard that Brian McLaren will be spending the first part of this next year touring eleven major cities to talk about ideas related to his new book, "Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope". The Tour will be coming to Chicago April 4-5, a Friday evening to Saturday afternoon, at the First United Church of Oak Park.

At the conference Brian and others will attempt to answer some of the following questions:

- What does it mean, in today’s world, to be a follower of God in the way of Jesus?
- What does it mean to be a faith community engaged in the holistic, integral mission of God in our world today?
- How do we, as individuals and faith communities, respond faithfully to the crises facing our world?
- What is our duty to God, ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our enemies, and our planet in light of Jesus’ radical message of the kingdom of God?
- How can we engage in personal formation and theological reformulation for global transformation?

Click here for more details about the Tour, or here for a short video by Brian with 7 reasons why you should come.

An Important Opportunity for up/rooted

This Tour is an exciting opportunity for our Emergent cohort to help connect even more people into the conversation here in Chicago, and also to help form new cohort discussions in other locations around the upper Midwest. Brian has graciously agreed to let us use his Tour as a chance to promote up/rooted and other cohorts - we will have a sign-up table, and a chance to speak from the front and invite the attendees to connect with a group near them (or form one if one doesn't already exist).

In return we want to help Brian with logistical, behind-the-scenes stuff for his Tour, basically to extend hospitality to Brian when he visits our city and also take some ownership for this event. That is why I am actively recruiting you (yes, you) to volunteer to help at the Tour. You won't have to miss much of the Tour, just give an hour or two of your time to help with things like registration, airport shuttles, worship music, food prep, IT Techs, etc.

As a thank-you for helping you will receive the following:
1) A reduced registration rate of $79
2) A private cohorts breakfast with Brian on Saturday morning of the conference
3) A free copy of the book (if you don't already have one)

If you are interested in being a volunteer, please let me know. (Email me at uprooted.chicago@gmail.com as soon as you can.) We need anywhere from 12-20 volunteers, so please step up if you are able.

And we of course need everyone to help spread the word about the Tour in your spheres of influence - at church, school, denominational headquarters, etc. You can download postcards and posters for your blog or to print here.

The goal of all this is to play a small part in spurring on this Revolution of Hope. I'm excited for this opportunity to partner with Brian, and I hope you will join us.

Tags: Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, Chicago

Summary of the first up/rooted city gathering

Hello emerging world!

Our first gathering of the city branch of up/rooted took place a couple of weeks ago now at Wicker Park Grace here in the city and after that initial inevitable stab of nervousness that no one was going to come, I felt really good about the experience.

Nine of us from the city and Mike from the suburbs sat around a pink-clad table in assorted chairs to eat hummus, apples with caramel dipping sauce, chips and cookies and to drink coffee and an array of tea. Once our kinship as creatures of flesh was established, we got down to the business of establishing kinship as creatures of experience. Mike spent a little time explaining the mission of up/rooted, deferring to me like he was speaking out of turn, but I hope that I clearly communicated that I was very comfortable with him in the role of teacher (he is a pastor after all) and that I am uncomfortable being much more to the group than a facilitator.

I have a degree in English and History because I believe profoundly that stories have power. Usually I engage with them in written form in books or on blogs or face to face with one other person over tea or on a road trip. However, this cohort is giving me a chance to experience people's stories in a new way. We spent almost an hour and a half taking turns widdershins around the table telling our stories of where we have been and where we hoped to go as a result of this kind of gathering.

We had folks from mainline protestant churches, folks in leadership at evangelical churches, folks who don't affiliate themselves with a church at all. Several folks shared my story of having their lives - forgive me - uprooted as they began to see that following God did not have to mean what they had always been told that it did.

As we concluded the evening, we decided that we wanted to continue with this format in the near future as we coagulate as a group, leaving the door open to different formats as time goes on.

We'll be having out next meeting on Monday, November 19. I'm working on a different venue, possibly bLEnd, but the fall back will be Wicker Park. I'll update you all as soon as I've got something nailed down.

I welcome any additions or corrections that anyone has about our gathering. I'm excited about what is forming here. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

-Rebecca

up/rooted.west, Nov 26 - Kingdom & Empire

Up/rooted.west will be meeting again on Monday, November 26 for practical/theological discussion of "Kingdom & Empire". We live in a world not dissimilar to the one Jesus lived in - where our lives and imaginations are often determined by the systems and narratives of "empire" (in Jesus' case, Rome, in our own, the "empire" of America or, more broadly, that of global capitalism). If Jesus proclamation of the "kingdom of God" was an explicit challenge to the imperial imagination of his own day, what implications does his message then have for us in our 21st century context? More specifically, what does this mean for how we engage with the systems and powers of government and the marketplace?

You don't have to have read anything ahead of time to join in the discussion and share your perspectives. However, if you'd like to study up I'd recommend this article from the Christian Century for a good overview. Or, for the more ambitious, read Colossians Remixed by Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat or Jesus & Empire by Richard Horsley.

UPDATE: We will be joined by Chico Fajardo-Heflin of Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston who has been studying these issues and living out their implications in his own life for several years. He has graciously offered to help lead our discussion.

We will meet at the Beamer Center at Wheaton College at 7pm on Monday, November 26. (We'll just take whatever space is available when we get there; go to the lower level and just follow the signs.)

See you then!

Mike Clawson
up/rooted.west co-coordinator

Multiplying Cohorts

up/rooted.city, our new downtown cohort, got off to a great start last week thanks to Rebecca Murphy who coordinated the evening, Nanette Sawyer, who hosted us at Wicker Park Grace, and all the others who came to share their stories and contribute to the conversation. I can't wait to see what "emerges" from this new network of friendships.

In many ways up/rooted.city is the result of a vision that I and many others share for multiplying these kind of conversations in the Chicago area and around the country (and the world). I am convinced that we are at the leading edge of a global spiritual revolution, and as with all revolutions, it begins with small groups of like-minded people gathering to share passions and ideas. Out of this are birthed friendships and networks that can change the world in both large and small ways.

That is why up/rooted exists, and it is why I would like to see even more cohorts birthed out of it. Right now we have groups meeting in the north suburbs, the west suburbs, and down in the city (some steps have also been made towards a south suburban group, but nothing consistent has developed there yet). We have also helped birth a cohort in Eastern Iowa.

However, there is so much more potential for new groups. Right now there are no cohorts at all in Wisconsin and some of you from there have driven down to attend up/rooted. Why not start a Madison, Milwaukee, or Southeastern Wisconsin cohort? We also have folks that occasionally drive from Chicago Heights and even Valparaiso to attend cohort meetings. Why not instead start a Northwest Indiana cohort? Or perhaps some of you are or know students at UofI or ISU or Bradley. Why not help get an Urbana-Champaign or Bloomington-Normal or Peoria cohort started? Or maybe you're not anywhere near Chicago but would like our advice on how start something where you're at. We'd be glad to help.

It honestly doesn't take much to start a cohort. All you need is three or more people, one of whom is willing to coordinate a day, a place, and a topic every one to three months, and then just start spreading the word to friends, pastors and others who might be interested (flyers at local colleges or coffee shops can be surprisingly effective as well). Beyond that, we can lend you the use of the up/rooted website and email list (or help you create your own) so you can start promoting your events on the web. I can also get you set up on the EmergentVillage.com cohorts listing so that others in your area looking for this kind of conversation will find you.

If you share this vision for multiplying the conversation, are outside of or on the fringes of the Chicago area, and are possibly interested in helping to start something in your area, please let me know. Just email me at uprooted.chicago@gmail.com and we can start talking about the possibilities.

I can't wait to see how this revolution grows!

uprooted.city quotes

We had a great time at uprooted.city the other night. I'll let Rebecca write the real summary. However I wanted to share a few fun quotes that "emerged" from the conversation:


"We get together, eat, have communion, complain... sometimes we complain centered around the Bible."

- James describing his faith community

"They're all there to find their Christian mate because they didn't get them at Moody."

- Rebecca describing a church she had experienced

"It was a young church, so we had to download the Statement of Faith and sign on the dotted line."

- Rebecca, on this same church

"Methemergent... Emergemeth... Emerthodist"

- Matt and others trying to think of a mash-up name for Emergent Methodists

Brian McLaren Summary

Helen Mildenhall attended Brian McLaren's talk at Dominican University the other night and wrote an excellent review at the Conversation at the Edge blog. Here's her description of the night, and here's her notes from Brian's talk.

Cynicism & Hope Conference at Reba Place

Almost missed this one... Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, IL (north burbs) is hosting a conference entitled Cynicism & Hope: Reclaiming Discipleship in a Post-Democratic Society on November 2-3.

Cost is $40 or $30 for students.

They describe the conference as follows:

How do we live out God's call to prophetic witness in an apathetic and disempowered society?

How can we learn from others who have remained faithful to Jesus' radical call in the midst of failure?

How can art, prayer and other forms of everyday resistance nourish our hope for the kingdom of God?

Join academics, activists and members of our communities as they share their work through the lens of cynicism and hope. Our vision is to provide a space for frustrated, justice-minded Christians who, like us, feel trapped by the current political situation but long to be part of meaningful action for change.

You can see a list of speakers and workshops as well as register at the conference website.

Podcast of up/rooted w/Spencer Burke & co.

Here are the links to the podcast of our event a few weeks ago with Spencer Burke, Neil Cole & Alan Hirsch on "Missional: Has it been shrink-wrapped too?"

Part 1

Part 2

Spencer is also offering a pre-Soularize feedlive event this Thursday, Oct 18th at 8pm CST with Ori Brafman author of “The Starfish and the Spider” at http://soularize.net/feedlive

Brian McLaren Coming to Chicago

In case you hadn't heard, Brian McLaren will be coming to Chicago next week. You will have two opportunities to hear him speak if you so desire:

The first event is a discussion and book signing for his new book "Everything Must Change" at the Borders in Wheaton on Monday, October 15 at 7:30pm. This will be our up/rooted.west event for this month (though we won't have any personal discussion time with Brian besides the public book signing). Come on out at 7pm to connect with the cohort and then we'll stay for the book signing together.


The second event is the following Tuesday evening (October 16) at Dominican University in River Forest at 7:30pm. Brian will be speaking as part of a special lecture series on the topic of Truth Telling in Christian America: Globalization, Poverty and the Environment. It is open to the public, though tickets are $10 (free for Dominican students, faculty and staff).

Of course, you may also remember that we've also planned our up/rooted.city kick-off for that same Tuesday night (Oct 16), at 7pm in Wicker Park. (We set our dates before we knew Brian was coming to town.) If you're down in the city I certainly hope you'll consider coming to that and helping us get off to a good start (if you want to know what Brian will be talking about, I'm sure a lot of it will be in his book.) However, if you're not in the city, or if you really just can't pass up the chance to go hear Brian in person, the Dominican event is definitely a good option too. We hope to make up/rooted.city a regular (monthly?) thing, so even if you miss the kick-off you can always join us for future events.

-Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator

Coming Soon: up/rooted.city!!!

I'm excited to announce that at long last and due to popular demand, we will be kicking off UP/ROOTED.CITY, our downtown Chicago branch of the cohort, on Tuesday, October 16 at 7pm. We will be meeting at Wicker Park Grace, in the Acme Art Works building at 1741 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL 60647.

Come join us for good conversation, to share our stories, and to help participate in this emerging revolution of faith. If you are in or near the city then bring yourself and bring a friend. Or, if you are out in the suburbs, then tell a friend who lives further in.

Hope to see you at the kick-off!

-Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator
up-rooted.com

P.S. If you are able to help us advertise by putting flyers up at schools or churches (especially in the downtown area) please let me know and I will send you a .pdf flyer.

Recap: up/rooted.west w/Spencer Burke & friends

Hey up/rooted,

Despite traffic difficulties that prevented a few of our panelists from being there, we had a great time the other night with Spencer Burke, Neil Cole, and Alan Hirsch out at up/rooted.west. Spencer kicked off the night talking about question of whether "missional" has been shrink-wrapped too. Has it become a product, a system, a hip label, a means for church planters and others to earn a paycheck, etc.?

Of course, this led into a whole mess of other questions, mostly relating to the dangers of institutionalized Christianity. Here's just a sample that came both from the presenters and from the audience:

• Does a desire to earn a paycheck get in the way of actually being missional?
• Is it bad for publishers to try and make money off a new term like "missional"? What are the alternatives?
• What happens when Sunday morning is no longer sacred in society, when it's just another day of commerce? Will that change how we do church?
• Why do we assume that one pastor can meet every need in a church, and even teach to every person (despite age, intelligence, etc.) on every necessary topic (e.g. relationships, money, spiritual growth, doctrine, etc.)? Can we imagine other, less top-down models?
• Are pastors in imminent danger of being downsized because of the realities of our post-christian culture?
• (From Rebecca in the audience): Is our concern over this question of missional being shrink-wrapped because we like to think of ourselves as "different", "rebellious", and "alternative"? Are we afraid of our ideas becoming popular and accepted? Is that why we keep inventing new concepts and terminology whenever an old one gets "shrink-wrapped"?
• How do we keep this missional movement from calcifying and becoming dogmatic? How do we continue to grow, change, "emerge", etc.?

Of course, many other things were talked about in and around these issues. True to form, Spencer was an excellent provocateur, giving us much to chew on and not being afraid of making us a little uncomfortable. Neil and Alan were fantastic as well.

Anyhow, if you missed it we'll have a link to the video webcast shortly. Check back here later.

-Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator


P.S. We have some exciting news about our next up/rooted gathering. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Helen has a good review of the event at the Conversation at the Edge blog too.

Live webcast of upcoming up/rooted

I hope you're all planning to attend our panel discussion this Thursday with Spencer Burke and friends. However, if you just can't make it, you can log-on to a live, interactive webcast at 7pm CST on Thursday by going to http://soularize.net/feedlive.

Recap of evangelicalism/emerging panel at up/rooted.north

(This is long for a recap post, you have been warned. And notice the panel gathering this coming Thursday, 9/27 beneath this post. See you there!)


To recap the panel discussion on evangelicalism and the emerging church at up/rooted.north yesterday, I have some good news and some bad news. Let's get the bad news out of the way first.

Bad news is, no podcast. Sorry to all of those who asked for it. It wasn't for lack of effort. In absence of someone who actually knew what they were doing, we set up the mic, turned it all on, fired up the recorder, and two hours later had...a blank CD. Smooth. Minus one geek point, plus one dork point. Our bad.

Good news is, the evening was excellent. A healthy 50 people turned out (at least they looked healthy to me), and a good many of them just asking “What's this thing all about?”, which is part of what up/rooted is all about. Made for some really great discussion.

I can't hope to cover everything here, and a lot of good topics were raised in the questions and answers, but as a synopsis of the topics of the evening I offer these summaries of Scot, Dave, and Wayne's answers to the two questions we asked them to prepare answers to. My apologies if my summary misrepresents some of their finer points (or even their not-so-fine ones).

Question 1: What issue in evangelicalism is the emerging church responding to, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of that response?

Scot: emerging churches are responding to the inadmissibility of doubt in evangelicalism, and therefore exhibit irony in their stance within the faith: they stand within it but also over it and at times over-against it. The emerging movement offers the freedom to ask questions that often cannot be asked in evangelicalism: inerrancy (especially in Genesis 1-11), Biblical authors as humans who's ideas of truth are conditioned in their context, science and evolution, hell and universalism, and coming to terms with faith having an awful lot to do with our social location (i.e. How many of us North American Christians would follow Christ if we were North Koreans?) The emerging church offers space to seriously process these tough questions; they genuinely want answers.

Wayne: the emerging church is responding to consumer and seeker-driven worship, re-emphasizing participatory worship, liturgy, prayer, the church calendar, confession and lament, and (following Bob Webber) worship as God's story of redemption. He expressed concern that this response still can lead to a new and improved “Celtic, mystic, ancient” seeker-worship, with a heightened (snobby?) aesthetic. Wayne also had reservations that the emerging church might think “authenticity” was the solution to the problem, not realizing authenticity is a social embodiment, that often takes the form of “We don't plan what we say and are just informal.” He also offered a very insightful critique that as emerging worship becomes more and more refined for “our” sensibilities, it only reinforces the ethnic and generational divide in the church.

Dave: the emerging church is reacting to a “we're in/you're out” mentality in evangelicalism that accentuates rescue from hell as the heart (totality?) of the Gospel and individualizes salvation. Instead of offering a second hand summary here, I'd invite you to read his blog post on this issue. (Which led to a surreal moment of Dave quoting himself out of a post he had made the day before for this very panel. That's a tip folks...when presenting, publish on the internet first so you can quote yourself!)

Question 2: What doctrine or church practice has particularly benefited from the emerging church?

Wayne: evangelism as community witness, especially in seeking to reclaim the church as a distinctive social community. Wayne did express concern that the emerging desire to be “un-evangelical” (not that guy, as he put it) could trump this reclamation of the Gospel, particularly in a hesitancy to actually speak and tell people the Good News. He also expressed concern that the emerging church could be co-opted by “bigger projects” in a similar way that the conservative and liberal church has been co-opted by conservative and liberal politics, respectively. He mentioned Jim Wallace's synthesis of right and left as a potential threat in this regard, and underscored again the particularity of the Gospel and the church community, which is not a handmaiden of political gains. (If you haven't picked up on it, Wayne is a pretty rocking anabaptist...a tradition I think the emerging church needs to (and often does) listen to closely.)

Dave: reclaiming the church as transformational, communal, and missional. The emerging church realizes the formation of Christians is about more than cognitive development, and shapes its gathered worship and communal life toward forming people in the shape of Christ, through liturgy, mutual submission and other community practices. Missionally the emerging church (at its best) rejects the attractional model of the evangelical church and seeks to minister in the community it is placed in: to live among and serve the neighbors, poor, hurting, and disenfranchised.

Scot: re-establishing a fuller, Biblical understanding of sin. Sin in evangelicalism is often reduced to the distortion of one's personal relationship with God. Scot spoke of how in Genesis 2 and 3 sin distorts humans' view of themselves, of God, of each other, and of the world. The Biblical narrative then, is an unfolding of God's answer to those problems: reconciliation with ourselves, with God, and with each other for the good of the world. And this answer doesn't skip straight from Genesis 3 to Romans 8 or the cross. First God forms a new community around Abraham. The gathered people of God (ecclesiology) is at the heart of God's story. (Scot unfolds these ideas in his newest—and good—book, “A Community Called Atonement.”)

So that's that, apart from the near violence at the end over the role of mega-churches our fearless moderator Geoff had to break up. (Way to go Geoff!) A special thanks to Dave, Scot, and Wayne, and to everyone who came out and joined us.

Jon Berbaum
--coordinator, up/rooted.north

up/rooted.west w/Spencer Burke & friends

I've got good news and even better news! The good news is that we will be postponing our up/rooted.west discussion of "How (Not) to Speak of God" until at least late October, which should give you plenty of time to obtain the book and read it ahead of time.

The even better news is that we are postponing this discussion because we have the opportunity instead to host a roundtable discussion with Spencer Burke, Neil Cole, Alan Hirsch, Denise VanEck, and Ron Martoia on the question "Missional: Has It Been Shrink-Wrapped Too?"

Come hear these well-known authors and leaders in the Missional Church conversation discuss whether the concept of "missional" has already become too much of a fad, gimmick, program, buzz-word, etc., or whether there is still some value to be had in embracing this term.

up/rooted.west will be hosting this discussion at Redeemer Lutheran Church at 1006 Gillick St in Park Ridge on Thursday, September 27 from 7-9pm. The event will also be broadcast live via internet for those of you who can't make it in person. More details on how to access that later.

If you can help us get the word out by putting up flyers at your school or church, please let me know and I'll send you a .pdf file to print off. Thanks!

Hope to see you there!

Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator

August '07 up/rooted.west update

We had a great meeting of up/rooted.west two weeks ago at Wheaton College. We had a diverse group from all over the Chicago area and even from other states. We spent the time sharing some of the questions and issues that were on our minds and also talked briefly about the vision for Emergent cohorts like up/rooted as connection points for people to discuss these kind of questions.

Our next gathering of up/rooted.west will be in three weeks on Monday, September 24 at 7pm (location TBD). We'll be discussion the theology of the emerging church, using Peter Rollins' book How (Not) to Speak of God as our discussion starter. I definitely recommend picking up a copy and reading it, but don't worry, even if you have not you will still be able to easily join in the conversation.

We will also be discussing several other books for upcoming up/rooted.west meetings this fall, including Will & Lisa Samson's new book, Justice In the Burbs, and Brian McLaren's newest book, Everything Must Change, due to be released on October 2. You may want to pick up a copy of these books as soon as you are able so you'll be ready to discuss at our upcoming gatherings.

Hope to see you soon!

Mike Clawson
up/rooted co-coordinator

Questioning the Answers: the emerging church critique of evangelicalism, a dialogue

Up/rooted-ers, have we got an evening for you: not just one thinker on the emerging church, but three! Up/rooted.north will be hosting a panel discussion called “Questioning the Answers: the emerging church critique of evangelicalism” on Thursday, Sept. 20^th at 7pm at Life on the Vine in Long Grove, IL.

You’re invited to this open and provocative panel discussion of the emerging church’s critiques of evangelicalism, and thoughtful consideration of the way forward. Our panel will consist of:

Scot McKnight, professor at North Park University and prodigious blogger and author;

Wayne Johnson, professor and director of the MDiv program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School;

Dave Fitch, professor at Northern Baptist Seminary, pastor at Life on the Vine, and slightly less prodigious blogger and author.

Each panelist will respond to a particular emerging church critique of evangelicalism (think issues of authority, church structure, worship, preaching, role of Scripture, etc.) and we’ll get a chance to engage with them in open discussion of these crucial issues.

Come and engage these thinkers, teachers, and pastors and each other as we gather together around the emerging conversation. Hope to see you there!

Southeast Emergent Gathering

The Southeast Emergent Cohorts are following in our footsteps and hosting a regional gathering in their neck of the woods now too. On October 11-13 they will be holding a retreat in Elfland, North Carolina with Chicago's own Scot McKnight as well as Mary McClintock-Fulkerson from Duke Divinity School to talk about Atonement as a Lifestyle, based on Scot's new book, "A Community Called Atonement".

If anyone who reads this blog is from that area you should definitely consider going. And if you aren't, but know someone who is, let them know about it. It's exciting to see more regional events happening. As we found with our conference, there are a lot of people who want to connect with the emerging church movement but can't make it to the big national conferences. A regional gathering makes these connections more possible.

Best of luck to Tripp Fuller, Steve Knight and all the others planning this event. I wish I could be there!