• Home
• Events
  • Google Calendar
  • Subscribe
• Cohorts
  • Find a Cohort
  • Contact Cohort Support
  • Cohort Blogs
• Groups
• About
  • FAQs
  • Values and Practices
  • Support
  • Leadership
  • Emergent Worldwide
  • Publishing Partners
• • weblog
  • podcast
  • press kit
  • donate
  • Feeds (RSS)

The Emerging Church Conference - Day 1

Posted Mar 21, 12:05 PM | 2 comments | by Editor | Link

By Jonathan Brink:

Emergence is not dead. It’s just changing. ;-P

For those who think emergence is dying or will go away, you weren’t here in Albuquerque.

This Emerging Church conference was in some ways similar to the New Conspirators conference a year ago in that it was designed to bring different voices together. These included Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr (the host), Shane Claiborne, and Alexie Torres Fleming. Karen Sloan is also doing some morning prayer exercises. Much of the conference felt like an attempt to bring together different traditions and simply live in the tension of that. It was in many ways an embodiment of Rohr’s message of a true participatory experience.

The first thing I noticed about the conference is that there were A LOT of people (over 900) and they were predominantly of the boomer generation or older. This was not your Guiness swilling, cool glasses wearing, hip, urban crowd. This was your grandpas and grandmas, parents and friends. The average age in the room was at least 50. And what this said to me is that the conversation is changing. It’s growing beyond the walls of the traditional group that started it.

Phyllis reviewed her work on The Great Emergence. For some it was brand new and others it was a review of her previous conference. It’s fun to watch Phyllis because she is lightning in a bottle. She even said it’s unfair to expect her to condense two thousand years of history into one hour.

Brian McLaren came on second and explored how we see the Jesus in the kingdom against the backdrop of history. Much of his content was an exploration of The Secret Message of Jesus and Everthing Must Change. For some this was not new content per se, if they had heard or read him before, but it was nicely presented. It was always great to hear him speak. Brian is a wonderfully gentle man who is much more interested in laughing than arguing. The standout quote for me was:

“Jesus didn’t proclaim a new religion. He proclaimed a new kingdom.”

What then followed really surprised me. We spent almost thirty minutes in a round table talk. The average age at my table was 50 and Catholic. It was incredible hearing the voices from those in the Catholic church on how they saw the Protestant Reformation. Some quotes include:

1. We’re so worried about abortion that we’re missing the fact that there are wars going on.
2. Our church is being thrown into total chaos over the GLBT issue.
3. Emergence is going from exclusionary to inclusionary.
4. Words of how we feel: hopeful, excited, searching, human, very excited, energized, thankful.
5. We see you Protestants as having been distracted over the last 500 years.
6. (a Catholic) We’re just now discovering we can read the Bible for ourselves.
7. I’m learning to debunk the myths of my own faith.
8. It’s nice to talk about who the central authority is: Jesus.

Richard Rohr followed a brief break and explored the idea of non-dualistic thinking, or thinking outside of black and white. This could best be described as living in the tension of the both/and. It many ways Richard gave us all language (although philosophical) to explain what we were experiencing and trying to communicate. I’m a huge believer that you can’t identify what is happening until you have the language for it.

Rohr was deeply compelling in what I would suggest is the natural outcome of the emerging movement and what Brian has been speaking for quite some time. It’s time to participate in the kingdom. It’s time to shift from an exclusive belief and to validate it by the way we live. Some of his more stunning quotes include:

“As long as you keep reflecting, you’re still in charge. Original participation, We’ve been in the desert of non-participation…” “Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about humanity, but rather humanity’s mind about God”

A really good way to catch up on some of the incredible quotes from all the speakers can be found on the Tweet Stream. The hashtag is #cac09.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cac09

I must say that in I walked away recognizing that this movement is alive and well. It is changing because it’s bigger than us. I honestly felt stunned to be part of such an incredible day and it was only day one.

Bookmark this article using Remarkable!