Luthermergent Gathering Recap
By Tim Snyder:
In October, about 30 folks (some in and out) gathered in Edina, Minnesota, as part of Christianity21. The time was filled with conversation, new friends, old friends, hard questions, prayer and trying to figure out if we should even have a Luthermergent “network.” Thursday we gathered together leaders of communities to talk about their contexts and about what they’re learning. We asked that difficult and often elusive question, “so why Lutheran?” and noticed how many of our Luthermergent communities are led by folks who are adult converts to Lutheranism. Weird, right? That evening we headed over to celebrate the launch of Sparkhouse and much needed space to just invest in each other. We closed the night with evening prayer and a blessing of the (Spark)house.
On Friday we re-convened and we dwelled in the word — “I believe, help my unbelief.” We then took some time to listen broadly to research on emerging churches in the ELCA (a PhD study by my friend Dan Anderson) and we dove into the results of the Luthermergent National Survey from last spring. We tried to imagine together what this network community might look like, might do and who we might serve. We didn’t try to resolve all that.
Much more is to come. If you’re interested in continuing the conversations started in Edina, whether you were part of them or not, email me (tksnyder(at)gmail(dot)com) and let’s talk. In the weeks ahead we’ll evaluate that gathering and we’ll try to imagine next steps. There’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m overjoyed to see the ways the Spirit is moving.
communities :: links :: leaders
nadia bolz-weber // house for all sinners & saints (Denver)
mark stenberg // mercy seat (Minneapolis)
yehiel curry // shekinah chapel (Chicago)
russell rathbun // house of mercy (St. Paul)
+++++
Some questions that were asked:
What does “authority” look like in our communities of practice?
How can we document these stories from communities? What are they teaching us?
Who are we as a network? (Most who identify themselves as “luthermergent” are in conventional congregations)
How might we work with a broken denominational system? What might a network contribute that the ELCA can not/is not doing?
How can we better support communities and those working within conventional congregations?
How can we do this in conventional congregations anyways? (honestly, no clue)
coming soon: photo gallery from the annual gathering.
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Should there be a Lutheremergent? Yes!
Authority? Word that de-constructs and re-creates the leader-followers and the follower-leaders
Document stories? Yes, listen, listen, listen, share, testify, listen
Who are we? Count me as another member in a “conventional habitat”
Who are we? Don’t forget the transformative liminal space of our camps… maybe we need to go to these places outside of our normal zones
Broken denominational system? You might be a Lutheran if you believe we are simultaneously broken, yet whole. Corinthians… we weren’t the first to screw things up!
How to support for those in conventional congregations? I have no idea. By the way, even with my earlier answers, I have no idea! I’m just sharing my clueless ramblings
Emerging from within conventional congregations? I’m going to ask my folks to read a chapter of Luke per day, every day, beginning in December, for one year. The first 24 days of each month will be Luke’s 24 chapters. Then we’ll read a chapter from Acts for the remaining days of the month. We’re going to read Luke over and over and over again. And I’m just going to ask questions… what’s up with the Samaritans? who does Jesus notice that no one else seems to notice? what’s up with praying for enemies—how do we do THAT? what’s God saying to us? what was God up to? what clues does Luke give us as to what God is up to now?
Bottom line… experiment! experiment! experiment! even if we completely blow it, believe more boldly still!
Clueless Tim