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A Letter from the Board to Friends of Emergent Village

Posted Oct 30, 07:14 AM | 40 comments | by Editor | Link

Dear Friends,

The Board of Emergent Village has been involved in a discernment process this year, and we would like to report where we believe God is leading us.

Emergent Village in its current form was developed to meet the challenges that confronted our nascent network several years ago. Each year we’ve considered whether it’s time to change the form of Emergent Village, and this year decided that indeed, it is time.

By way of background, Emergent Village is a 501©(3) organization that seeks to serve the generative friendship called emergent. Over a year ago, our Board of Directors acknowledged that all of our original goals and dreams for emergent had been fulfilled: the network had grown and diversified beyond our highest hopes, and as a result, the landscape had changed substantially. We initiated a time of prayerful discernment, seeking God’s guidance for our way forward. To gain input and help us reach closure on next steps, we created a survey that we invited people to participate in over the summer. Response was amazing. In just a matter of days, over 2,000 people had participated. Hundreds made their contact information available for additional follow-up. The wealth of data that came in was truly impressive.

We built the survey around four possible scenarios, looking back from three years in the future:

A. In 2011, having fulfilled its mission, Emergent Village has ceased operations. It spawned needed dialogue and was a catalyst for continuing conversations that have taken hold in various denominations—Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Anabaptists, and so on, as well as among non-denominational and para-church groups. New churches are being planted, conversations are ongoing in seminaries and local cohorts and other networks, and books and websites are being developed to continue the conversation, which has taken on a life of its own.

B. In 2011, Emergent Village functions as a provocateur/prophet on the ecclesial landscape by linking and convening thought leaders and organizing a significant two-part event each year. This national gathering for leaders (similar to the emergent conventions of a few years ago) begins with a two-day on-ramp gathering for people just engaging with emergent for the first time. It then continues with a cutting-edge gathering where thought leaders and creative practitioners address diverse subjects ranging from the arts to social justice to theology and philosophy to preaching to church planting to children’s ministry. Through publishing partnerships and new media, Emergent Village disseminates these new ideas for wider impact. The annual event and publishing partnerships, supplemented by donations, provide needed funds.

C. In 2011, Emergent Village has decentralized into many emergent neighborhoods. Many of these neighborhoods are local or regional cohorts which organize and present monthly meetings, events, websites, etc. Other neighborhoods are denominational networks like Presbymergent, Anglimergent, and so on. And still others connect affinity groups such as business leaders, technologists, scientists, visual artists, songwriters, etc. Emergent Village has a small paid staff: one provides support and resources for cohorts, and one links and supports the other networks. They convene cohort leaders and denominational network leaders a few times each year and organize one larger gathering annually. Participating organizations and individuals provide needed funds.

D. In 2011, Emergent Village has grown into a vibrant network. It supports and convenes cohort leaders and denominational network leaders, maintains publishing partnerships, and is a key partner in producing an annual national Christian faith, art, and social justice festival. It links and resources several innovative church planting networks and convenes a variety of think-tanks, theological conversations, arts communities, and other gatherings. It maintains a list of emergent-affiliated churches, and provides web-based resources to help churches and potential staff members find one another. It “evangelizes” and seeks interested people to sign on to the four practices of the emergent community and identify themselves as emergent Christians. It is supported by a well-developed fundraising strategy.

The strong winner was Network of Networks (D), with Prophet/Provocateur (B) a strong second, Neighborhoods© a solid third, and Shutting Down (A) a distant fourth. Respondents consistently told us four things:

First, Emergent Village plays a very important role in their lives and ministries. Surprisingly few felt it was time to shut down.

Second, nearly everyone agreed that emergent is a grass-roots relational network … and that it should not become another large nonprofit religious organization building a big budget and staff. Institutionalization was consistently identified as the wrong way to go.

Third, the development of emergent “neighborhoods” was cited as a key development. The network has self-organized—as vital networks do—and we should seek to facilitate and support the development of village neighborhoods like Anglimergent, Presbymergent, Methomergent, Baptimergent, etc., with new neighborhoods being formed even now.

Fourth, we consistently heard that there was an inherent tension between the role of Network of Networks (D) and Prophet/Provocateur (B). As a network, we would create and defend safe space for needed conversations to happen. As a prophet/provocateur, we would seek to enrich that space with messages, ideas, and questions that stimulate conversation. The tension between these two legitimate roles could be stated like this: on the one hand, if we push too hard as provocateur with a message of our own, we make the space less safe for people who don’t agree with that message. On the other hand, if we create space without any sense of content or direction, people will lose interest.

So, we need to continue, but not institutionalize. We need to promote self-organizing neighborhoods yet maintain a kind of “village green” or commons for their to be cross-pollination and interaction among these different neighborhoods. We need to provide safe space for newcomers to the conversation and space for new ideas and provocative challenge to be shared as well. The question for us has been how to integrate these inherent tensions, insights, and agreements in a coherent plan.

We have “lived with” this valuable input for a few months now, and in late summer, a clear sense of direction began to … emerge. First, we need to be, as our name suggests, a village, which means we need to create and defend safe space in which people can have needed contact and conversation. The “city limits” for the village should be the four values (or rules of the order) that emergent has developed:

A. Commitment to God in the Way of Jesus
B. Commitment to the Church in all its Forms
C. Commitment to God’s World
D. Commitment to One Another

Second, also as our name suggests, we need to be a village about emergence. The timing of Phyllis Tickle’s important new book (The Great Emergence, Baker, 2008) could not have been better in this regard. The space we create must have room for prophetic and provocative input to challenge and resource us for ongoing emergence.

These priorities have led us to make four decisions:

1. To streamline, decentralize, and reduce expenses by discontinuing the role of National Coordinator. When we created the current form of Emergent Village, we knew it would be in place for a season and would then need to be changed, and when Tony Jones stepped into the National Coordinator role, he felt the same way, telling us he’d be available for a few years but would then want to move on. The Board is grateful for Tony’s energetic leadership in this role over the last three years. He has taken us to a new level, leading in the development of our website, developing catalytic events and publishing relationships, building relationships, and helping our fledgling network become an acknowledged voice in the larger Christian community. In so doing, he has successfully prepared the way for this next chapter. Tony will continue in his role on a part-time basis through the end of the year, and will stay actively involved as a passionate participant in this conversation and friendship. In fact, as a writer and speaker, he will be able to make contributions he couldn’t make in his current role.

2. To re-emphasize the importance of the website in creating space and supporting the network. Steve Knight has served as the facilitator for the EV blog for a number of years, and has agreed to invest even more of his energy and creativity in the development of the site and the expansion of its resources. You’ll be hearing about some of these new resources in the near future.

3. To decentralize by depending on friends of emergent—individuals, non-profits, and for-profits—to continue to seize new opportunities. For example, we are hopeful that the Wild Goose Festival (modeled on Greenbelt in the UK) will develop a national gathering that will facilitate and expand the emergent conversation. We are pleased to see neighborhoods, cohorts, and other regional gatherings creating conferences and events for their own regions, denominations, movements, and constituencies. We hope to see local cohorts continue to develop and expand as needed. And we want to continue to partner with professionals and ministries—in publishing, consulting, speaking, event planning, liturgical resources, church planting, seminary training and leadership development, mentoring, etc. Rather than emergent entering into these fields as a competitor, we want to serve any and all like-minded organizations in their work. Whenever possible, we want to serve as a hub to help a variety of self-organizing networks and creative individuals network together so that what is emerging may continue to emerge.

4. To reconfigure the board in 2009. We love Emergent Village, and we are committed to serving our community through this transition. In the coming year, we will seek fresh voices to expand and strengthen the board to maximize its effectiveness for the next chapter in our story.

We’d like to offer a few final comments on what we understand Emergent Village to be (and not be), and what we believe we are called to do.

Emergent Village exists to serve the Missio Dei by creating safe space for conversation. Many religious communities fear, shame, restrict, and exclude people who ask questions, propose creative innovations, or open up new ways of thinking, but since this network began a decade ago, we have been a safe space for open and generative conversation. We don’t care whether these conversations carry the term “emergent” or not. In some cases, it is advantageous to do so; in others, it isn’t. The conversation matters; the name doesn’t.

Second, Emergent Village has become an increasingly diverse community. Racial and gender diversity has been steadily increasing, as has ecumenical diversity—bringing together Mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Post-Evangelicals, Charismatics, Roman Catholics, and so on. Conservative Evangelicals won’t necessarily endorse everything a Mainline Protestant says, nor will Roman Catholics endorse everything Conservative Evangelicals say. We aren’t focused on agreement in Emergent Village, but on learning. We aren’t focused on converting each other, but on growing with each other. We aren’t focused on creating a new institution or organization, but on facilitating a needed conversation and generative friendship.

Third, because Emergent Village is interested in conversation, learning, friendship, and innovation among a wide array of Christians, we aren’t interested in creating or defending a competitive brand. When people take stands against emergent, or argue about brands like emergent versus emerging church versus missional, and so on, our preference is not to defend, and certainly not to attack. We will be happy when all these terms have served their purpose and fade into obscurity, having injected their positive values into the church and world at large. In the meantime, we’re happy whenever people are growing in love for God and neighbor, as Jesus taught.

Which brings us back to the four values that have been identified as the heart of the emergent conversation, noted earlier, and quoted here in their entirety. (For the list of associated practices, check out the longer descriptions.) These values continue to inspire us, and we encourage everyone to reflect on them prayerfully:

1. Commitment to God in the Way of Jesus
We are committed to doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. In the words of Jesus, we seek to live by the Great Commandment: loving God and loving our neighbors—including those who might be considered “the least of these” or enemies. We understand the gospel to be centered in Jesus and his message of the Kingdom of God, a message offering reconciliation with God, humanity, creation, and self. We are committed to a “generous orthodoxy” in faith and practice—affirming the historic Christian faith and the biblical injunction to love one another even when we disagree. We embrace many historic spiritual practices, including prayer, meditation, contemplation, study, solitude, silence, service, and fellowship, believing that healthy theology cannot be separated from healthy spirituality.

2. Commitment to the Church in all its Forms
We are committed to honor and serve the church in all its forms—Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Anabaptist. We practice “deep ecclesiology”—rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.

We believe the rampant injustice and sin in our world requires the sincere, collaborative, and whole-hearted response of all Christians in all denominations, from the most historic and hierarchical, through the mid-range of local and congregational churches, to the most spontaneous and informal expressions. We affirm both the value of strengthening, renewing, and transitioning existing churches and organizations, and the need for planting, resourcing, and coaching new ones of many kinds.

We seek to be irenic and inclusive of all our Christian sisters and brothers, rather than elitist and critical. We own the many failures of the church as our failures, which humbles us and calls us to repentance, and we also celebrate the many heroes and virtues of the church, which inspires us and gives us hope.

3. Commitment to God’s World
We practice our faith missionally—that is, we do not isolate ourselves from this world, but rather, we follow Christ into the world. We seek to fulfill the mission of God in our generations, and then to pass the baton faithfully to the next generations as well. We believe the church exists for the benefit and blessing of the world at large; we seek therefore not to be blessed to the exclusion of everyone else, but rather for the benefit of everyone else. We see the earth and all it contains as God’s beloved creation, and so we join God in seeking its good, its healing, and its blessing.

4. Commitment to One Another
In order to strengthen our shared faith and resolve, and in order to encourage and learn from one another in our diversity through respectful, sacred conversation, we value time and interaction with other friends who share this rule and its practices. We identify ourselves as members of this growing, global, generative, and non-exclusive friendship. We welcome others into this friendship as well. We bring whatever resources we can to enrich this shared faith and resolve.

With gratitude for your interest, partnership, and friendship …

Download this letter from the Board (PDF)

Read the press release about today’s announcement

UPDATE: Listen to the Emergent Village podcast for a conversation with Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Ivy Beckwith, and Mark Oestreicher discussing this announcement

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