NYC Emergent Village Cohort

NYC Emergent Village Cohort

1. Emergent Hybrid Synergy: The Rise of the -Mergents
   

   Emergent Hybrid Synergy: The Rise of the -Mergents

   by Tony Jones and Steve Knight
   
   ** This Emergent/C newsletter was sent out last Friday, March 28 by Emergent Village **
   

   We're not sure how it started to happen exactly, but people from many different streams of Christianity started finding some inspiration, hope, and community through Emergent Village-and then they started to find each other. Well, it's grown dramatically over the past couple years, thanks in large part to the Internet. We're thrilled about this, as people explore how the emergent experiment might take hold in the Petri dish of their own traditions/denominations.

   All of this has resulted in a number of hybrid groups:

   • Luthermergent (Lutheran) - possibly the earliest hybrid group to form; the official name of this group is the "Emerging Leaders Network," but don't let the name fool you, they're Lutherans
   • Methomergent (Methodist) - probably the second oldest group; Jay Voorhees, pastor of Antioch UMC in Nashville was perhaps one of the first, most visible Methomergent voices
   • Presbymergent (Presbyterian) - this group started with Karen Sloan and Adam Walker Cleaveland and has now grown to "a full-fledged community of several hundred ministers, lay-persons, writers, evangelists, youth directors, web-developers, theologians, seminarians, artist-musicians, and more."
   • Reformergent (Reformed) - this group is somewhat different from the others because it's "interested in the interaction between Reformed theology and the emerging church movement." Chris Case is the main man "minding the (occasional) gap."
   • Submergent (Anabaptist) - this group has a growing list of conspirators, but Mark Van Steenwyk is one of the most prolific
   • Anglimergent (Anglican/Episcopal) - this is "a generous and generative friendship among diverse Anglicans, engaging emerging church and mission"; it is fast approaching 400 members with the "urban abbess" herself, Karen Ward, at the helm (in North America, and Ian Mobsby is the man in the UK and Europe)
   • Convergent (Quaker) - this network includes people from the North America, the UK, and Australia who are trying to "discuss the radical changes within our culture, how that's affecting our tradition, and how we can follow God's mission in the world given our postmodern world."
   • AGmergent (Assemblies of God/Pentecostal) - this is probably one of the newest groups to form; founder John O'Hara has described it as "a meaningful conversation about what it means to live out our faith in Christ, as Pentecostal believers, in relationship with each other and the greater Body of Christ."

   Other groups probably exist, and we'd love to know about them. If you're part of an Emergent hybrid group, please email us and let us know about it. We'd love to help others connect with you.

   Emergent Village is "a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ"-and we realize that missional Christians exist in every stream of the Church. To put it another way (as our website states), Emergent is just one "node in the web of the emerging church," and it's deeply gratifying to help facilitate these kinds of connections between people emerging from within these various streams. So give us a shout, if/when you start a new network, and we'll be glad to help spread the word.

   Quick Links...

   Emergent Village Site	Emergent Village Blog
   Emergent Podcasts	Support Emergent Village
   Emersion Books

   
   
2. No Cohort in December - Help us Rethink & Renew
   Hello.
   
   We are canceling the December cohort.
   
   We feel the cohort has reached the end of it's first wave or you might say, first era...we'd love your help in imagining where it will go next...
   
   When the cohort started, emergent ideas were still incubating in NYC and soon many of them were born into real life...many of the people who became friends through the cohort are now super busy running what they've started...but now many more new things, and new leaders are emerging - note the NYC Faith & Justice group announcement below.
   
   But still, if you are like me, you spend a lot of time explaining to new people just what this emerging church thing is, and so we are still in the early days of the emerging church and there is much room for many more expressions and new ideas - and thus a place where people can come together to talk about them and urge one another forward.
   
   Please comment below with your thoughts or ideas about the future of the cohort, what you would like to see, what you would be willing to do, or contact Jeff and Bowie by email.
   
   We'll be seeing you in some way in 2008!
3. Shane Claiborne w/ NY Faith & Justice, SUNDAY
   

   New York Faith & Justice Presents...
   

   
   

   SUNDAY December 2, 2007: The Bridge AND Christianity and Transformational Development!

   1) The Bridge has MOVED to 5pm service at All Angels Church, All Angels Church (251 W. 80th Street & Broadway. The first 30 RSVPS for the Bridge (at 5pm) will be receiving vouchers for the Community Meal after the service. RSVP to pheltzel@nyfaithjustice.org ASAP.

   2) After The Bridge, Join us for Shalom, Reconciliation and Non-Violence: Extremists for Love - All Angels Church (251 W. 80th Street & Broadway) 7.30 - 9.30pm

   Speaker: Shane Claiborne, prominent Christian activist and bestselling author of ‘The Irresistible Revolution’

   Love wins. Death dies. Amid the hells of war and poverty, Shane will share about the triumph of love and scandalous grace amid war zones and ghettoes. Building upon the wisdom of Christian radicals throughout history, we will consider how to live our faith in ways that prophetically interrupt the destructive patterns of our world.

   NOTE: For others attending the Bridge, we encourage you to catch dinner in the neighborhood and come back @ 7:30pm to hear from Shane Claiborne.

   Please RSVP to suzana.s.andrade@gmail.com for Shalom, Reconciliation and Non-Violence: Extremists for Love
4. Rising from The Ashes: Rethinking Church by NYC's Becky Garrison
   Rising from The Ashes: Rethinking Church is available in at many Barnes & Noble bookstores, select Episcopal and other church bookstores and Amazon.com (US and UK).
   
   The NYC church leaders interviewed for this book:
   Elise Brown, Advent Lutheran/Common Ground (http://www.myspace.com/advent_commonground)
   Isaac Everett (www.isaaceverett.com)
   Jahneen Otis (http://www.jahneen.com>
   Rev. Kevin Bean/Rev. Elizabeth Garnsey, St. Bart's Church (http://www.stbarts.org)
   Nancy Hannah, Calvary/St. George's Episcopal Church (http://stgeorgesnyc.dioceseny.org)
   Rt. Rev. Catherine Roskam, Episcopal Diocese of New York
   Marilyn Haskel, St. Paul's Chapel (http://www.trinitywallstreet.org)
   
   Also, the Latino Leadership Circle is listed in the resource guide (http://latinoleadershipcircle.typepad.com)
   
   If anyone would like to check out any of these leader's services, email Becky Garrison (bgthedoor@aol.com) and we'll arrange a time to get together.
   
   * Press Release *
   
   

   RISING FROM THE AHES: RETHINKING CHURCH TAKES AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT
   EMERGING WORSHIP FOCUSING ON MAINLINE LITERGICAL CHURCHES
   
   This First American Look at the Subject Features Contributions
   from Many Leading Thinkers on the Topic
   

   
   NEW YORK (September 7, 2007) – Author Becky Garrison describes her new book, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury), as a “salon where voices come to the table” to discuss ways to reach those for whom church is not in their vocabulary.
   
   The alternative worship/emerging church movement has been underway in various incarnations throughout the UK for more than twenty years, and has impacted the U.S. evangelical community since the 1990s. However, these influences are just now beginning to emerge within the mainline liturgical churches. What impact do these new ways of worshiping God have on the contemporary mainline church?
   
   Rising from the Ashes engages these questions through interwoven oral history-style interviews with people working with mainline churches who at the forefront of exploring what it means to “be” the Church in the 21st century. Several worship leaders who do not self-identify with the emerging church movement are also included.
   
   The diverse array of voices range from High Church Celtic Christians to Evangelical Anglicans, as well as a few spiritual souls who consider themselves to be post-church. The contributors to this book include: Diana Butler Bass, Jonny Baker, Kester Brewin (Signs of Emergence), Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, Peter Rollins, Phyllis Tickle, Karen Ward (Church of the Apostles, Seattle), and NT Wright.
   
   About the Author: Becky Garrison's first book Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: (Jossey Bass, April 2006) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her book The New Atheist Crusaders and their Unholy Grail will be released by Thomas Nelson in January 2008. She began writing for The Wittenburg Door in 1994 and currently serves as Senior Contributing Editor. Her additional writing credits include work for The Ooze, God’s Politics blog, Christian Retailing, Prism, Stackpole Books, Bibal Press, Episcopal Life, and The Living Church.
   
   
5. Cohort Tuesday - We don't need to read it!
   We are going to discuss a book we haven't even read!
   
   The Cohort this Tuesday will discuss Pete Rollins book, How (not) To Speak of God - and most of us haven't even read it! What you say?? That's right, we have been having book discussions on well known emergent books by reading reviews and short excerpts - are we academically challenged? No, just super busy and we recognize all of you are too, so we're making it easy. After one of the dialogs, you might find that you can't wait to read the book, or that you got enough and you can budget that precious time for another book.
   
   I would say this has been the book that has been the most talked about and created the most excitement in emerging church circles in the last few years. It is a true work of new emerging theology. Brian Mclaren wrote the forward and gushed in his praise for it. I am hearing it's ideas seeping about in emerging conversations, and feeling it affecting my thinking regularly in some areas, or beginning a process of challenging me and making me think in others - and I haven't even read the book! I've read so many brief reviews or heard people talking about it that I've kind of gleaned some of it's main ideas - you know a book is good when that happens.
   
   But you are all just as busy or more than me, so you also may have not read it - so below are a few reviews to link to, but especially an excerpt from the publisher.
   
   Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 6:30pm
   
   Origins Church Office
   581 9th Ave #3B (corner of 42nd and 9th Ave.)
   above the papaya dog.
   Enter next to the hotdog place on 9th ave.
   look for the ORIGINS poster in the door and buzz number 3B...
   
   
   Reviews:
   
   The best I think is to read this excerpt of the book: http://site.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-hownot_a01.pdf
   
   Here's a good blog review, you have to link to his five posts on the book - so I won't reprint them all in this email.
   http://ifgodislove.blogspot.com/2007/01/reading-how-not-to-speak-of-god.html
   
   Here's a short one, not very comprehensive:
   http://www.bethquick.com/2006/11/review-how-not-to-speak-of-god-by.html
   
   
   Here's the link to the Next-Wave Ezine review:
   http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue97/index.cfm?id=20&ref=ARTICLES_REVIEWS_307
   
   
   --
   The Cohort Team