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Here is something I found in my documents folder an older pastor gave me several years ago as I began being a pastor/minister. Some wise advice I should have re-read alot more.
—-Don’t start things in life you aren’t willing to finish
Love everyone but be carerful with deep trust
Learn deep faith in God through all the difficulties of life, faith during
good times means little.
Read the old dead guys and proverbs and the gospels alot.
Be who you are and nothing more or you will end up being less.
Be serious about being devote and holy.
Listen
Enjoy the little things of life
Measure yourself by how you treat the least in your church
Preach God’s Word not your opinions or the latest fad
It’s a sin to bore people with the Word of God which is the most relevant
information in the universe.
Love your wife above all without letting your eyes see any other -if you have
one
Have a friend you can be drop dead honest with
Find something to do that brings you joy apart from ministry
Realize what a staggering call it is to be a pastor, it is the most powerful
and terrifying job in this life anyone can have.
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Metaphors in Mind: Transformation Through Symbolic Modelling, by James Lawley and Penny TompkinsI have been reading and discussing this book, the past few days with my doctoral cohort.. It has been an amazing book that unpacks the pyshcology and psycho dynamics of metaphors and how we use and process them.
Isomorphism
In particular I have found fascintating the idea of isomorphism, whereby we take an experience that we cannot ever explain to someone fully, and use a different experience with a metaphor, so that other people can experience our experience. We do this to convey the unconveyable, as our words are unable to translate an experience enough for others to enter into our experience, so we use the isomorphism of metaphors. For example:
- I feel angry, but a certain kind of anger, whereby something happened that caused me to lose control of myself, and give into to a response to my anger….
- now if I tried to explain myself that way with those words you’d be saying…’what do you mean?’
- But if I said, ‘when he said that, it was the straw that broke the camels back, I saw red, and felt incandescent’….we might reply with another metaphor, ‘oh I see what you mean!’
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Part 2
Emergent Present (submitted by Brian McLaren)
CONTINUED …[In Part 1, we looked back over progress made by the emergent community during our first three years of existence. In Part 2, we look at some of the problems we currently face. To see part one, go to www.emergentvillage.com.]
So, with both progress and problems on our minds, we gathered in Chicago in August with a shared sense of both gratitude and concern – gratitude for our progress, and concern that if emergent hadn’t already gotten slightly off track, it was in danger of doing so.
A. Tone: There are a lot of angry, alienated, disillusioned, exhausted, and wounded leaders out there. Some have been deeply hurt and frustrated by the conservative protestant establishments in the U.S. (and the U.K. and elsewhere too). Many of them have been attracted to the emerging church conversation as a better alternative. Some are fundamentalists who want out of fundamentalism, but they don’t realize that as long as they bring their anger, bitterness, “we’re-right/they’re-wrong” mentality, and polarizing rhetoric with them, they are preserving fundamentalism’s worst features.There are parallel problems in many mainline settings. Some people feel eaten up by the bureaucracies, and others have been criticized so often that they’re understandably on the defensive. We want to continue to welcome all these brothers and sisters and help them heal and get on to a more productive and positive life and ministry, but we also feel that their pain and anger could poison the spirit of emergent. We want and need to steer a positive, irenic, patient, and generous tone – both toward these brothers and sisters, and toward those they are angry at. Each of us has felt the anger ourselves, and sometimes expressed it inappropriately, and so we’re sympathetic – but glad we are in the process of moving on, and eager to help others do the same. At the end of the day, we believe that the injustice and sin in the world call for the church in all its forms to be healthy, effective, and engaged: we do not believe these times call for one “model” or one approach – and so any hint of a narrow, critical tone will derail the emergent conversation.
B. Branding: The terms emergent and emerging church have now become a brand, and we feel deeply ambivalent about the brand identity. We seriously considered dropping the name emergent and finding a new name, but did not decide to do so, not yet, anyway. This branding process is part of the standard communication protocol in our complex, media-driven world. Many, perhaps nearly all, of these companies are deeply sympathetic to what we’re about, and they are sincerely trying to help. Yet if they don’t understand that emergent is itself still emerging, and that the “product” can’t yet be boxed, wrapped, and fully defined, they may inadvertently inhibit our progress and growth. We need to communicate with these allies and ask them to join us as we grapple with the deeper theological issues we feel we must address – rather than reducing “emerging church” to another form of programmatic pragmatism. We are especially concerned about our conversation being co-opted into a market segmentation scheme that we feel is morally suspect (because it can become divisive) and superficial. We want no part of being seen as “the latest new thing” or “us-versus-them.” Our sincere desire is to bring blessing and encouragement and resources to anyone who is interested, without criticizing those who aren’t interested.
C. Diversity: For this conversation to yield a productive movement, it needs a broader range of voices at the table – female and male, nonwhite and white, mainline Protestant and Evangelical, Catholic and Protestant, Western Church and Eastern Church, global south and global north, etc.
D. Friendly Critique: The above dangers haven’t been minimized by the criticism – some of it harsh – coming from expected and unexpected places. Criticism goes with leadership, and one expects it whenever entering new territory. But it’s hard not to be discouraged at times when people indulge in critique that extends to judging motives. We need to ask our friends – especially in the blogosphere, where harsh rhetoric can flow too easily at times – to communicate with us personally instead of about us publicly, in order to avoid wounding the community they love and hope the best for. As well, we need to remind our friends that what we’re trying to do is not easy; that we are trying to build alliances rather than doing everything ourselves – and that partnerships are more complex than high-control sole-proprietorships (which have their own problems); that all of us serve as volunteers, and at our own expense, and that we all have full-time day jobs as pastors – something we feel has more benefits than disadvantages at this point – although the disadvantages are real; and that we’ve only been “in business” as emergent for three years – so we haven’t quite gotten our act together yet.
E. Hostile Critique: We have expected some sort of critical response to our work for some time, and have so far been impressed by how generous and restrained critique has been. That restraint may end soon. When it does, we need to be prepared to keep a sweet spirit about critiques, and not become distracted by them. In many cases, the critiques will be based on issues that are relatively unimportant to us; in other cases, they will be unfair. In some cases, they will actually help us, as they help make clear the differences between emergent and other approaches, so people can make intelligent choices about where to invest their energy. We don’t want everyone to join us, and we are glad that some non-emergent leaders will succeed in steering some people away from us, as they will be happier and more productive elsewhere.
F. Margin: With two annual conventions done in partnership with Youth Specialties, and with two or three important annual events that we plan on our own, and with deep involvement in our own local churches, we easily run out of margin in terms of time, energy, money, and creativity. Believing as we do that we are still emerging – that our full message and vision remains to be seen – it is essential that we keep adequate creative margin so we can continue to explore and think and imagine.
G. Structure: We have resisted “institutionalization” because it hinders creativity, yet a lack of adequate structure erodes margin and has the same effect. So we need to develop adequate structure, knowing (as A. W. Tozer wisely said) that structure is “necessary and dangerous.”
H. Belonging: One of our most serious problems has been expressed in a number of ways: I want to get into emergent, but I don’t know how. Emergent is elitist. Emergent is a closed group. This is the farthest thing from our desire, yet we hear the frustration. People not only want to learn from emergent as a conversation or resource, they want to identify with it as a community, to belong to it, help it, participate in it. To some degree, this problem reflects our avoidance of excessive structure – yet without structure, the only way to know you “belong” is by having a personal relationship with those considered to be “insiders” – but insiders can too easily become relationally saturated (especially when they’re pastors and authors and parents). We knew we needed to address this issue of belonging, and that part of the solution was structural.
I. International: For a number of reasons, we all felt that the international side of emergent was at a critical and fertile juncture. We have been realizing increasingly that “postmodern” is a Euro-American way of talking about one slice of a much larger and more profound reality called “postcolonial” in the global south (which is now the demographic center of Christian faith and mission). We believe that postcolonial is a better, richer, more all-encompassing way to frame many of the issues we are grappling with. So, we are convinced that any theological conversation that doesn’t include global south and north as partners simply perpetuates colonial, modern, Euro-American Christianity. The global north/west needs to learn from the global south/east, and we want to link emerging leaders for that conversation and friendship. We have been working on this side of things for a couple of years, but we felt the time had come to shift significant resources in this direction.
J. Justice: While a conversation centered on postmodernity can too easily be abstract and theoretical, a shift toward postcolonial thinking inevitably forces us to grapple with issues of justice – economics, politics, oppression, militarism, peacemaking, empire, racial and ethnic hatred, environmental degradation, global warming, etc. Especially here in America, where American colonialism may thwart post-colonialism in favor of a neo-colonialism, we need to grapple intensely with issues of global justice – for our own sake, and the sake of the world. No less, we need to grapple with issues of urban justice here in America, and all the moral, social, economic and political realities that our cities face. Here we desperately need input from our mainline and Roman Catholic sisters and brothers who have by and large been more attuned to these issues than many of our evangelical friends. And we need to partner and learn from with those evangelicals who have been at the forefront of justice issues for many years. Even so, we realize that the way ahead is far beyond the old polarities of left and right, so creative thinking and action will be required of all of us. This concern for justice – for the good of God’s world in history, for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven – is at the heart of what the word “missional” means. It would be a radical betrayal of our vision for us to unwittingly encourage the church to be preoccupied with itself and its own welfare to the neglect of being a blessing to God’s beloved world.
This is a fair though incomplete summary of what brought us together in Chicago. What were the outcomes of our time together? TO BE CONTINUED
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Part 1: Emergent Past (submitted by Brian McLaren)
Greetings, friends of emergent …
It’s late August and I’m on a bumpy plane returning from three days with Doug Pagitt, Tim Keel, Laci Scott, Tim Conder, and Jason Clark. We met in Chicago (graciously hosted by International Teams in Elgin – iteams.org) to talk, pray, and plan about emergent’s past and future.
(see continued section)
Continue reading »
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Article at Christianity today
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The ‘emerging church’ movement has generated a lot of excitement but only a handful of congregations. Is it the wave of the future or a passing fancy? By Andy Crouch
Continue reading »
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Tim Keel has put this visual representation together of the structure of Emergent, that we planned over August. Being a visual person, I love this kind of mapping by image.
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Great Site, run by a friend Jim Henderson. The site if packed full of great and free resources, here.
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Article by Brian Draper at LICC, on ‘connecting with culture’. Marc Greene who heads up LICC will be involved in our december gathering, and I’m writing an essay for a chapter in a book they are putting together on making disciples in a emerging context.
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[Excerpt]
Good news! The church is beginning to catch up with the big changes that have been shaping society. Philosophical, technological, political and social upheavals of the last few years have re-moulded the way we live and breathe and have our being – and much of the church has come to realise that it must engage or slowly die.So, recently you might have used some images in worship, for example – through power-point slides or video. You might have taken part in some ‘interactive worship’ by lighting candles, making a prayer tree or walking a labyrinth. You might even have gone to a conference on ‘emerging church’.
In the rush to become more culturally savvy, however, we must beware simply dressing the same old church up in new clothes. As Brian McLaren points out in his excellent book The Church on the Other Side:…(rest is here)
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Marc Alton-Cooper who heads up our media arts production and team in our church community has a blog, and is beginning to put some of the stuff he does for us on his site a resource for you all.He is at here
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I’m off celebrating a friends 40th Birthday in the beautiful CenterParcs at Longleat. Be back here in a few days.