only wonder understands

One of the great themes of us emerging folks is authenticity. The inability to be the persons that we were created to be is one of the great frustrations for persons arising from the postmodern bog. Steve Taylor prophetically made us aware of this reality back in the 1980’s with his satirical song, “I Want […]

As I’ve read through the EC reports I’ve seen a mix between critique and praise. Since I offered criticism in the midst of the event, I need to follow up with a positive report. As I’ve said before, I am a repeat offender to the Emergent Convention, having attended the first one last year in […]

I liked Haloscan better, not that anyone really cares.

[Listening to: Real Emotions – Los Lonely Boys – Los Lonely Boys (4:04)] Here are a few random thoughts that I want to remember from the EC workshops: From Brennan Manning (Quoting a black preacher friend of his) “Be who you is, because if you ain’t who you is then you is what you ain’t.” […]

Without the solitude of the heart, the intimacy of friendship, marriage and community life cannot be creative. Without the solitude of the heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of the heart we cannot experience the others as different […]

The new blogger update has commenting integrated, which I have just enabled on this site. You will see two comments links. The first is the blogger comments and the second is good old Haloscan. I am probably moving to the blogger comments, but want to see if I like them before I delete haloscan, so […]

Back in March I wrote a post about how I am a recovering racist. Since that time, several folks have written in support, or suggesting that I’m being too hard on myself. What I was trying to say (and unfortunately was not always heard) is that most of us have those lingering places of sin […]

[Listening to: Onda – Los Lonely Boys – Los Lonely Boys (8:55)] “Jesus, the Blessed One is poor. The poverty of Jesus is much more than economic or social poverty. Jesus is poor because he freely chose powerlessness over power, vulnerability over defensiveness, dependency over self-sufficiency…” Henri Nouwen from Bread for the Journey How often […]

I hate that so many folks were unable to be at the final General Session, because it was perhaps the best of all and overcame many of the problems that I blogged about earlier. The session began with worship and communion featuring the music of Harp 46 and liturgy by Brian McLaren. Rather than trying […]

Tim made reference to Wendell Berry’s “Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community” which is a Berry book I haven’t red but need to get. “Ministry is an overflow of an intimate conversation with God.” “The message of the prophets is always tied up in the person of the messenger.” Thus preaching (sharing the message of God) […]

Tim Keel’s “Preaching as an Act of Intimacy” was a great end to several days of great seminars. As Doug Pagitt shared last night, traditional preach (what Doug calls “speeching”) is an act which has the possibility of working against the building of Christian community. While Doug argues for a complete overhaul of the act […]

I downloaded the new add-on for blogger at http://www.hello.com. It uses an instant messaging approach to upload pictures to blogger, allowing you to photoblog via blogger. It’s been fun to take some pix today along the way. I spent too much time playing at Provence, although I got Stacey’s blog updated a bit and showed […]

D J Chuang is the on-line services coach for the American Bible Society and a member of Cedar Ridge Community Church. D J was a great resource for the “Dreaming of the Multicultural Church” lunch and it’s been great to spend time with him. He also is a pretty decent VJ… Posted by Hello

The Emerging Mac Bloggers at Provence Posted by Hello

Stacey blogging at Provence Posted by Hello

I’m up at Provence (bailing on the General Session, which is (by the way) no reflection on JoAnne Badley) and hanging out with the Mac bloggers (I must be a dinosaur to be PC based). I’ve got the webcam hooked up and am broadcasting via Yahoo Messenger at jvoorhe. Check us out.

I’m up at Provence (bailing on the General Session, which is (by the way) no reflection on JoAnne Badley) and hanging out with the Mac bloggers (I must be a dinosaur to be PC based). I’ve got the webcam hooked up and am broadcasting via Yahoo Messenger at jvoorhe. Check us out.

I’ve been on the periphery of a couple of conversations with Lauren Winner yesterday and today which suggest that she is feeling like her presentation last night was not well received. Some of us have told her that we felt her presentation was good, but that the setup didn’t support her presentation. If you get […]

Here’s the picture of the blogger dinner that Michael Toy took. I’m stealing it because I can… By the way, it was great to get together with these folks. I especially enjoyed connecting with Lilly and discovering that we ran around in the same late 1970’s era charismatic church haunts. It is a small world […]

It is, after all, the common sport during and after the EC to suggest that Emergent’s relationship with YS is a corrupting influence that keeps us from doing what we want. Yet it’s too easy to bash on the corporate monster and not appreciate the dynamics the both contribute to and hinder a symbiotic relationship. […]