A Node in the Web of the Emerging Church

Emerging in Eastern Europe

Posted Jul 20, 11:00 AM | 1 comments | by Editor | Link

Emerging and Underground Ministries Roundtable - SLOT Festival 2009

By Becky Garrison:

I just returned from the Slot Art Festival, an international gathering of about 5,000 young adults held at a dilapidated monastery. Even though event is advertised as Christian, about half of the participants would not self-identify as Christians. Jonny Baker’s post on Slot captured many of my feelings about this imaginative and creative gathering.

While Slot is an event that takes place at a specific time and place, a number of Slot-related events appear to take place throughout Poland during the year, thus enabling the sparks begun at Slot to continue burning long after the festival concludes. (For those interested in an overview of Christian festivals in Europe and the UK, here’s a piece I did for Relevant.)

While at Slot, I spent my days participating in Kalejdoskop, the Global Roundtable for Emerging and Underground Ministries, as well as leading a series of talks on Church in the 21st Century. (You can download a PDF of the program schedule for those who might like to check out all that this group was able to pull together.)

At night, a number of us from the roundtable kept up with the Joneses by partaking of their gracious hospitality and delicious cooking, toured their traveling truck, as well as hung out in the café, sampled the wide array of musical offerings that extended well into the morning hours. No event where Andrew Jones is participating would be complete without the requisite pizza party. So, those of us from the Roundtable gathered together one night for a regal party in the monastery’s baroque ballroom.

Emerging and Underground Ministries Roundtable - SLOT Festival 2009

Of particular interest to me was the emerging church panel, which was held in the Kiwi Café (an appropriate choice given Andrew Jones, aka Tall Skinny Kiwi, was moderating this discussion). The participants included:

Jonny Baker (CMS, emergingchurch.info) for UK

Wolfgang Fernandez (Next-Step) for Asia

Becky Garrison (www.beckygarrison.com) for USA

Olgavaro Bastos Jnr (Tribal Generation) for South and Central America

Andrew offered his reflections as a traveler visiting other communities throughout Europe. Here’s the MP3 of this panel (download unedited audio, 1.5 hours, 80MB), which was translated into Polish. (Editor’s note: You’ll hear voices speaking in English—Andrew Jones first, then Jonny Baker, etc.—interspersed with the Polish translation.) But what was most important wasn’t what was said but rather that during this time about 50 leaders from some 20 odd countries came together. The financial crisis kept some from attending in person; though they were clearly present in spirit.

The question that I’m mulling over post-Slot is the need for those of us in the United States to seek out ways of interacting with our brothers and sisters around the globe so that we aren’t importing our brand of Westernized Christianity. Rather, we need to assume the position of listener and explore together how we can work together for kingdom in ways that enable others to retain their indigenous culture.

Photos by Becky Garrison. Top photo: Denny Hurst/Portugal and Olgavaro Bastos/Brazil drum together as a display of unity despite the tension between the two countries. Trevor MacPherson/USA drums with them. Bottom photo: Andrew and Debbie Jones cooking with assistance from Simon Barker. See more of Becky’s photos from Slot Festival on Facebook. Jonny Baker is posting photos from SLOT, as well.

Becky Garrison is Senior Contributing Editor for Sojourners and The Wittenburg Door, as well as author of Rising from the Ashes and The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail.