Emerging Church
Had an interesting conversation with the other young priest in the Dicoese, I hate that, that there is only one other young priest in the Diocese, about where we are at as the Episcopal Church in America. Talking about a post denominational era, that names myself as a Christian before all else, read, before Episcopalian.
It was interesting to talk about it, and try to comprehend the big picture and how much effect the Church can have in this movement and then to even think about the fact that we are not really a Denomination at all, but rather a Communion, a group of people spread throughout the world who are willing to come together and live in tension, and challenge and all that difficult stuff that includes great joy, hope and happiness. It is interesting to think that most people in this day and age are not going to join a Church because it is Episcopalian or even Anglican, they are going to join because the people, the services, and other factors that make them feel at home, and welcomed and part of something bigger than themselves. If they want to join at all...
Post Denominationalism, interesting. How do we grow a Church in the middle of such a paradigm shift that by its very nature is going to put a stop to churches self identifying as a particular expression of Christianity. We are Christian first, then Episcopalian. The mission field has changed and I am coming to believe that if we don't find a way to work together and come out of our isolation, there will be little time left for this Church to recover from the sweeping cultural changes that will wipe us out.
Sorry to be so negative, but it is true, I also think it means that we are living in some of the most exciting times in the history of the Church, the shift is almost tangible, you can see it and feel it and hear it and it is moving, something is happening, how do we overcome petty territorial squabbles and become the church together?
Be well,
A+
It was interesting to talk about it, and try to comprehend the big picture and how much effect the Church can have in this movement and then to even think about the fact that we are not really a Denomination at all, but rather a Communion, a group of people spread throughout the world who are willing to come together and live in tension, and challenge and all that difficult stuff that includes great joy, hope and happiness. It is interesting to think that most people in this day and age are not going to join a Church because it is Episcopalian or even Anglican, they are going to join because the people, the services, and other factors that make them feel at home, and welcomed and part of something bigger than themselves. If they want to join at all...
Post Denominationalism, interesting. How do we grow a Church in the middle of such a paradigm shift that by its very nature is going to put a stop to churches self identifying as a particular expression of Christianity. We are Christian first, then Episcopalian. The mission field has changed and I am coming to believe that if we don't find a way to work together and come out of our isolation, there will be little time left for this Church to recover from the sweeping cultural changes that will wipe us out.
Sorry to be so negative, but it is true, I also think it means that we are living in some of the most exciting times in the history of the Church, the shift is almost tangible, you can see it and feel it and hear it and it is moving, something is happening, how do we overcome petty territorial squabbles and become the church together?
Be well,
A+
Comments
I am just reading this one chapter from this book called the misisonal leader and one particular paragraph stood out to me.
It says "In Emergence: The connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, steven Johnson describes how ants - without leaders or explicit laws so far as we know - organize themselves into highly complex colonies that adapt to the environment as a single entity, altering size and behavior to suit conditions, exhibiting collective intelligence or what has come to be called emergence. Similarily he describes how cities develop in the same was as ordinary people gather together to develop commercial, artistic, and social life; what emerges is the form of cities we identify as London, Paris, New York and so on. These cities aren't so much planned from some central schema but gradually emerge from the multiple activities of all kinds of people. He describes this collective intelligence... "what features to all of these systems share? ... they get their smarts from below...they are complex adaptive systems that display emergent behavior...the movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication is what we call emergence."
What I think about this is the system in which is the episcopal reality. We are built on heirachy and structure. How do we build dreams from the bottom up and create alliances with the existing structure to let the work and dreams and Spirit move, even when it sounds nuts or may be viewed as threatening to the institution?
Thanks for your heart in this - keep the conversation going brother.