Category: community

web 2.0 rant

[rant]

So I love this idea of ambient intimacy. I love that I can get to know the folks in my community better and better through things like twitter, and facebook status updates and even their blogs.

I love that I can learn so much about people in short 140-character thoughts and quotes and comments throughout the day.

But I’m also getting annoyed that twitter is starting to become a “link dump” and/or a “read my new blog post!” @tonyjones twittered about this last week and I originally thought, well that’s a bit unkind – then I realized how many text messages (aka noise) I get throughout the day that are nothing more than “read my new blog post!”

I hate it because while I don’t mind seeing these things in facebook’s news feed or on my twitter friend feed I also see them in my RSS reader. So having an announcement about them show up on my cellphone as text messages really bugs me.

I know, I know – everyone just wants to plug their stuff — and honestly I’ve plugged a blog post here or there too. But I guess what gets me about the whole scenario is that for those folks I chose to go the extra mile in getting to know and actually opt-in to get their tweets sent to my cellphone (rather than just following them via the web). I don’t need a reminder to check your blog. And the fact that you automatically send me announcements every time you update your blog (rather than just highlighting the really good stuff) — or send a mass of tweets 3 or 4 times a day that share all your blog posts from the last several hours — makes me that less interested in following you or subscribing to your twitter feed. All the automatic posts just add to the noise and turn me off.

Am I making any sense? Maybe not — but I guess that’s why it’s a rant.

In full disclosure, the encounter blog and website are setup to automatically post a tweet anytime and every time a new blog post is updated and/or we post a new announcement or podcast to the website. So you can probably rant and rave about that and argue that I’m being biased (maybe this is where my rant/argument falls apart). However, I would argue in response that both the blog and the website are updated on a fairly limited basis and I’m/you’re not following the encounter twitter feed because you want to get to know someone better – it’s setup as a “news/announcement/prayer feed” for folks interested in encounter.

So there you have it. What say you?

[/rant]

I better post a link to this via twitter to be sure everyone knows about it and responds. 🙂

[rant continued]

update :: I also hate reading RSS feeds that don’t show the entire blog post. I don’t want to have to click “read more” or “this post continues elsewhere.” Just put the entire blog post in your RSS feed — PLEASE! I’m dumping a lot of RSS feeds right now that make me click on another link to read — it makes the entire point of RSS rather pointless.

[/rant]

the great emergence conference

Plans have been made for the Great Emergence Conference to take place in Memphis this coming Dec.

The book is based around Phyllis Tickle’s upcoming book by the same name.

The Great Emergence National Event is a unique and freshly designed event built on innovative adult learning techniques including interaction, participation, and inspiring content on the current state of and future possibilities for Christianity.

Around the four main sessions with Phyllis Tickle, participants will also enjoy the daily office — thrice daily times of prayer — based on Phyllis Tickle’s bestselling book, The Divine Hours, in the majestic and historic Cathedral of St. Mary in Memphis, Tennessee, which will be bedecked with Advent greenery.

Memphis and St. Mary’s Cathedral hold a pivotal place in American history. Memphis was the scene of much racial strife during the Civil Rights Movement, culminating with the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. The next day, hoping to quell a burgeoning riot, many of the city’s pastors, priests, and rabbis gathered at the Cathedral. In an impromptu move, the dean of the Cathedral took the processional cross from the church’s altar and led a procession of the city’s clergy down Poplar Avenue to city hall, where they petitioned the mayor to end the sanitation strike that King was in town to protest. As an important location of the emergence of civil rights in 20th century America, Memphis and the Cathedral are a poignant place to discuss the emergence of the church in the 21st century.

Along with Tickle, a number of folks will be hosting workshops during the event (I think half of them have been on the Homebrewed Christianity podcast)::

Tony Jones, national coordinator of Emergent Village and author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier

Doug Pagitt, founder and pastor of Solomon’s Porch (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and author of A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-Filled, Open-Armed, Alive-and-Well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in Us All

Peter Rollins, founder of ikon (Belfast, Ireland) and author of The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief

J. Brent Bill, executive vice president of the Indianapolis Center for Congregations and the author of Sacred Compass: The Art of Spiritual Discernment

Lisa & Will Samson, members of Communality (Lexington, Kentucky) and co-authors of Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live

Joseph Myers, author of Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect

Tim Keel, founder and pastor of Jacob’s Well (Kansas City, Missouri) and author of Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, co-founder of Rutba House (Durham, North Carolina) and author of New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church

Karen Ward, is Abbess of Church of the Apostles, Seattle, an intentional, sacramental community in the way of Jesus Christ.

Sybil MacBeth, is a mathematics instructor, a dancer, and a doodler. Her 2007 book Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God introduces a prayer practice that is meditative, visual, active and playful. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband, Andy, who is an Episcopal priest.

If you’re interested in going – sign up now. The cost is $145 with early registration or $195 after Nov. 5.

Register online with coupon code JBLB (won’t save you any money but if I can get 20 folks to sign-up then I’ll be able to join you there :-))

find out more at www.thegreatemergence.com

Reimagining Church

Finished “Reimagining Church” last night. A good followup to Frank Viola’s book “Pagan Christianity” The book picks up in many places where Pagan Christianity left off – but also works as a standalone piece as well. As the summaries and publishers suggest, Pagan Christianity deconstructs the church and Reimagining reconstructs it.

Don’t know if it fully reconstructs it – but it definitely get’s the ball rolling.

Viola explains in the introduction:

Herein lies the purpose of this book: to articulate a biblical, spiritual, theological, and practical answer to the question, Is there a viable way of doing church outside the institutional church experience, and if so, what does it look like?

Many could see Viola as a threat to the church – especially the institutional church – but perhaps that’s why I really enjoy the book. He adds in the introduction, “I’m writing this volume because I love the church very much.” It’s the institution that he (and I tend to) have problems with. (Viola later suggests that “institution is any patterned human activity.”)

Viola argues that the institutional church as we know it is ineffective and also without biblical merit. That our current churches are constructed more on programs and rituals than relationships. That institutional churches are built around a highly structured “worship service” where the audience is separated or set-apart from the professionals (pastors, ministers, worship leaders, etc.).

In the institutional church, congregants watch a religious performance once or twice a week led principally by one person (the pastor or minister), and then retreat home to live their individual lives.

In place of the institutional church (which Pagan Christianity explains came about through many Greco-Roman customs — especially during the Constantine era), Viola argues for a more organic approach to Christianity. One in which there is no separation between lay-persons and the clergy. One in which each person’s spiritual gifts are valued and each person takes part in the group gatherings. One that meets in homes during the week rather than multi-million dollar sanctuaries/malls.

Viola compares these two views of church throughout the book, but perhaps the most beautiful illustration is one from Hal Miller.

Miller says that institutional churches are like trains. They go a certain direction and continue on that direction making a lot of noise and blowing a lot of smoke. They’re easy to find, hard to stop and can’t change direction without coming to a crawl and someone flipping the switch on the track.

Organic churches are more like people walking through a neighborhood. They move much slower but can turn at a moment’s notice. Because of their slow pace they can be genuinely attentive to the world around them, as well as to the Lord.

And because of it’s organic nature, the organic church is always growing and reproducing. And no matter where it grows or shows up, this organic church should always reflect the same DNA elements ::

  • It will always express the headship of Jesus Christ in His church
  • It will always allow for and encourage the every-member functioning of the body
  • It will always map to the theology that’s contained in the New Testament
  • It will always be grounded in the fellowship of the triune God

Those first two points are probably the stickiest points for everyone and likely why Viola spends a vast majority of the book discussing them. Unfortunately, I felt like he spoke more on what that didn’t look like than what it did look like.

In addressing these issues, Viola argues that the body of Christ must not be about the hierarchy systems of the world but must instead be about mutual edification and mutual submission. I personally believe this is a lot of what Christ spoke of in John’s 1st letter ::

I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
The same glory you gave me, I gave them,
So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—
I in them and you in me.
Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,
And give the godless world evidence
That you’ve sent me and loved them
In the same way you’ve loved me. (john 17)

Imagine the impact this would have on the world around us if we all truly lived as one. Where no one person took precedence, where church decisions were based on consensus rather than dictatorship or democracy. If the members of Christ’s body are truly submissive to Christ and to one another, I believe Viola would argue that this would turn the world upside down.

Yet for someone who’s grown up in a traditional, institutional church, the idea of a church led not by a man (or woman or group of men) but by the headship of Christ (through the Holy Spirit) is foreign. And yet I can definitely understand the reasoning behind it. I can agree with the Scripture Viola uses to make the point — but to picture it and understand how you would bring that about is foreign to me (and probably 99% of “church-going Christians). Perhaps this will be addressed in future books.

It does look as though this is part of several more in the “series” as Viola mentions two more books coming out in the near future. “From Eternity to Here” is the next one on the map.

Regardless, this book leaves me hungry for seeing something more in our churches today. It’s a great supplement/compliment for what I’m feeling/thinking/dreaming in my soul. It leaves me aching for truer community, where there are true spaces of grace, intentional relationships and God experiences are shared by all.

I hope to come back and share some of the many quotes/thoughts that stood out to me in my reading — but I just started a new book by Greg Garrett, “Stories from the Edge – A Theology of Grace” so it might take me a week or so to get back to “Reimagining Church” :-).

related ::
www.reimaginingchurch.org
www.housechurchresource.org
www.ptmin.org
SSL :: looking back at a house of prayer
encounter :: priests in the hood
encounter :: tribal faith

How Pixar builds collective creativity

There’s a story making it’s way around the interwebs from the Harvard Business Review about How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Pixar’s the CGI animation studio (originally a division of LucasFilms, then owned by Steve Jobs and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company) that put out great movies like Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Cars, etc.

Since they released Toy Story in 1995, the studio has earned thirteen Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, and one Grammy.

Pixar’s President Ed Catmull writes ::

A few years ago, I had lunch with the head of a major motion picture studio, who declared that his central problem was not finding good people—it was finding good ideas….

Unlike most other studios, we have never bought scripts or movie ideas from the outside. All of our stories, worlds, and characters were created internally by our community of artists. And in making these films, we have continued to push the technological boundaries of computer animation, securing dozens of patents in the process.

In the article Catmull shares 3 key organizational principals that guide Pixar ::

  • Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone
  • It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.
  • We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community.

Imagine what a church could look like that implemented these ideas! An environment where everyone recognizes that they are truly a part of the priesthood of believers and that all the believers around them are as well.

Brian mentioned this morning that at encounter we try and view everything as an experiment. There are some things we try that work great and then we work to make them even better — and there are things that don’t always work out as we hope so we scrap the idea and move on.

What if everyone really felt like they could really take ownership in ideas and participate in the ongoing conversation about God and life? What if everyone realized their ideas would be listened to, valued and built upon?

How differently would we view one another? How different would our conversations be?

I hope in my own community group and all of our community groups (as well as our church as a whole) we continue to foster community and environments where everyone feels a valuable part of the experience and process.


How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!

It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.

It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore. – psalms 133

Benched

Here’s what one group of folks did in their East Atlanta Neighborhood ::


Benched from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

What are you doing to make your neighborhood better? You too could become a community organizer – get people organized for the betterment of the community!

quote for the evening

The authority and submission that Scripture envisions gives more authority to the church than does Rome, trusts more to the Holy Spirit than does Pentacostalism, has more respect for the individual than Humanism, makes moral standards more binding than Puritanism, and is more open to the giving situation than “The New Morality”
-John Howard Yoder
As quoted in Reimagining Church by Frank Viola