The Living Room

TLR Newsletter: May 28, 2009

2009-03-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

TLR Vision Frame - DRAFT 1

2009-01-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

Last Friday night twelve of us from TLR got together at Steve Hayner's house. Our purpose was to have a conversation about a vision for TLR. We reminiced, made fun of ourselves, and had an all around great conversation. While we talked Steve took notes. We then locked him in a room until he finally produced the following draft of a vision statement for TLR.

Well, now it is time for the wider community to have a debate about it! We will begin this debate online and then the TLR twelve will get back together (sort of like on Super Friends). You are invited to join the conversation by reading, reflecting and then posting your comments. What words work and which ones don't? Do you have an alternative you want to propose?

VISION FRAME (draft #1)

Who are we?

~ an unlikely, unexpected, unedited, unfearful, unfunded UN-CHURCH (with our very own un-pastor :) ~

What do we value?

Dreaming

Wrestling

Journeying

Experimenting

Creating

Emerging

Welcoming

Connecting

Sharing

Why are we doing this?

We believe that God is calling us to:

emerge from what we have experienced as dying institutions

wrestle afresh with life and faith

love friend and stranger

engage the scriptures in dynamic, collaborative ways

experiment with new patterns of worship, community and service

connect our stories with God's bigger story

How are we living out our faith?

In order to nurture our relationships with God, with one another, and with Jesus' work in the world, we....

.....gently welcome one another into an open, thoughtful, diverse and transparent community

.....joyfully gather for Spirit-guided worship which includes organic music, creative encounter of scripture, authentic connection with Christ and one another at the Table, and fearless prayer

.....creatively enage the manifold gifts of our community in expressions of faith which are as original as our lives.

.....lovingly connect to the Grant Park neighborhood and to the world far beyond

The Living Room is....

.....simplicity on the other side of complexity

.....more about being "with" than speaking "to"

.....experimentation without anxiety

.....a place of grace in a wounded world

.....healing food for hungry hearts

......a wide journey in a suspended, local space

......raw life and naked wonder

COMMENT AWAY!!!!!!!!!

TLR 2009 Resolutions:

2009-01-05T05:15:00.000-08:00

So, last night at TLR we participated in the American cultural tradition of making resolutions for the new year. In some ways last night was an exercise similar to Yom Kippur: we reflected upon our past year and dreamt together for the new year. The following is a list of resolutions we made for 2009. Since I'm the one writing this post I've also included my personal commentary about what we discussed. I invite you to read and make your own comments!

We resolve to be a community of ALL peoples. We had a lively conversation about how we need to be more open and conscientious of opposing theological and political viewpoints. We want TLR to be a community where liberals and conservatives, people who watch PBS and Fox News, etc, can gather around the communion table of our Lord. We do not want to privilege any one perspective, rather we want to create what our friend Peter Rollins calls "suspended space". Someone threw out the idea of creating a 'stump speech' that someone says every week before we begin our conversation. Others threw out the idea of intentionally inviting and creating partnerships with those who are different from us (Tom likes the idea of doing a service project together). We also discussed our need to be welcoming to families with children (thanks Amelia!) by providing child care. What other ideas are out there?

We resolve to engage a variety of worship forms. Many people commented on the need for our worship gatherings to engage ritual and liturgy. We also talked about centering prayer and the idea of creating original indigenous liturgies. Tom threw out the idea that we could have a menu of choices to choose from on any given Sunday, such as: 1. TLR Improv Night: an improvised, unscripted conversation about a biblical text and/or relevant issue of faith and life; 2. TLR Jam-Session: a night dedicated to the art of music; 3. TLR Ritual: either borrow from the great liturgical traditions and/or create an original liturgy that speaks specifically to TLR; 4. TLR Speaks: inviting an outside speaker to talk with us about a relevant issue for our community; 5. TLR Serves: devoting an evening together to serve those with need. We also spoke of the need for starting a spiritual recovery group that meets during the week. We also resolve to be verbose and overly academic and delve deeper into the personal stories of participants.

We resolve to be connected into the Grant Park neighborhood. Six months ago we began a "test drive" of meeting in an old church that the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta owns. At first, I was wary of meeting here - would meeting in a sanctuary negatively change the ethos of our young community? I have been pleasantly surprised that it hasn't. In fact, it has been very beneficial for us! So, now that we have conviction about our location we want to become connected into the fabric of our neighborhood. We discussed our need to be actively involved in the Grant Park Neighborhood Association and the Grant Park Parents Network. We also reaffirmed our desire to start a coffee shop in our sanctuary space, which is a defined need in the neighborhood. The Mission Program Grant Tom is applying for will help with the start up costs for this project. It is our hope that this coffee shop will become a welcoming "third place" in Grant Park and provide a modest source of income to help sustain our collective.

"Remember no man is a failure who has a friend" - Clarence, the angel from It's A Wonderful Life

2008-12-24T19:28:00.000-08:00

Last night was one of those nights that I won't forget easily. Let me tell you the story:

So, a week and a half ago TLR celebrated Christmas by singing some original compositions of traditional Christmas carols at The Thinking Man tavern. Click here to read and hear renditions of our gaiety. It was tons of fun! I remember fondly buying almost 20 people from TLR a shot (a red headed slut). We drank it, slammed it and sang loudly a carol that confused those drinking at the tavern. But they put up with us and even laughed with us as we made fools of ourselves (the apostle Paul would be proud!).

OK, I'll admit that doing this fed my desire that TLR would do things that are original, weird and challenging. It was sooo much fun singing carols in a public place like a pub. It was fun to drink while celebrating Christ's birth...

But... something equally as radical occurred last night in a little country church one hour west of this infamous pub. I serve this little country church as their preacher and they have an identity crisis. Some are enamored with the mega-church and all its entrapments. I came from that world, hence one of the reasons I was hired. They got someone whom they thought could grow the church and well, I got a steady paycheck. Seemed like a win-win situation to me :) But what of God... was this simply a business transaction or was there a movement of the holy spirit (the "bruhah", or breath of God)?

Last night, I renewed my hope in the power of the Holy Spirit. Why? Here's one reason: I heard a retired southern preacher (Harry) tell me about the civil rights struggle in the south saying, "you don't know how bad it was". He told me a story about how when Hank Aaron was reaching toward the home run record that there were members of Harry's congregation, with guns by their side, that said they will "kill that nigger". The grimace on his face showed the years of hardship he endured. He was the one of a few pastors who signed his name to the Atlanta Manfesto.

I saw last night members of this very traditional congregation cry and give thanks for a Christmas Eve service that was NOT formal, but rather informally gathered around a fireplace (yes, they have a fireplace IN their sanctuary - pics later). I organized the worship service and had planned on moving folks immediately from our worship service to a time of fellowship. HOWEVER, when we ended everyone wanted to talk! Now wait a minute... this is something I expect when I arrive on Sunday night at TLR. I mean come on, we say that we are an "open-source faith community". But, wait... can this kind of spontaneous conversation happen outside of a hip, cool, overly educated community like TLR???

I had to swallow my pride and say "yes" last night. Thanks be to God.

tnevdA: a reversal of the traditional 25 day countdown to Christmas

2008-11-07T17:43:00.000-08:00

Join us on Monday, November 24th, 7-9pm for tnevdA - featuring special guest Peter Rollins!!

"Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward." Soren Kierkegaard

Think of the greatest possible holiday moment, the Christmas of your dreams. Now walk back a day into the lack of that moment. Take another step back into postponed pleasure, into that place of wishing, hoping, longing. Take step after step... day after day.... backward. Back into loss, into hopelessness, into the empty.

Step backward twenty-five long days and sit, and wait, and watch. Become like a wild and free animal in the meadow staring alone long and deep. Breathe, be aware...

We have the honor of welcoming theologian Peter Rollins, and local artists as we enter a time of tnevdA - a reversal of the traditional 25 day countdown to Christmas. We are hosting this event with Atlanta Emergent Cohort.

The Living Room meets at the old Georgia Avenue Church, on the corner of Georgia Avenue and Grant Street in Grant Park. Our physical address is: 645 Grant Street SE, Atlanta, GA 30315. Street parking only.

TLR is Evicted??

2008-11-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday night we had a little fun at TLR: We held our worship gather outside in front of the old Georgia Avenue Church - where we have been meeting for the past couple months. So, before everyone arrived we threw our couches, chairs and lazy boys out on the curb to make it look like we had been evicted from the church due to not paying our rent. Why? Because we were hosting a group of students (led by our very own Emily Martin) from Columbia Theological Seminary who shared with us reflections on the post-exilic text of Nehemiah 2 (where Nehemiah asks the king to go to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the walls that had been destroyed during the exile).

We talked about what it means for our community to become rooted to a particular place after being nomadic this past year. There was a resounding affirmation by all who attended that for TLR "church" is people, not a building. The building we are meeting in now is an historic traditional church... but we are seeking to hold in tension the need to see this building as simply an adequate facility for us to gather and be protected from the elements, while at the same time recognizing that this is a sacred space that has been worshipped in for over 100 years. Our conversation included the sharing of an interesting idea: Grant Park is in need of a coffee shop - what if we opened one?

Ideas, ideas, ideas.... the conversation continues as we continue to gain new insight into God's call upon our young and thriving community.

I Love You

2008-10-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This was re-printed with permission from Scott, an active friend of The Living Room.

Since I've been coming to The Living Room I've been somewhat apprehensive to embrace Jesus as a god and even God himself (or herself). I've just been burned so many time in my life by dysfunctional religious people and I'm sick of it. You'd think I'd learn my lesson and not come back to any church but I just can't seem to let go that there is something bigger than us in the universe.

Anyway, I've asked for your prayers that I somehow experience God so I'll have something to hang on. Tom has been good counsel as well as my friend Wendy (she doesn't come to TLR but is a friend of it and recommended it to me originally). Some of it has been helpful but most of it is batted down by my own anger and biases towards the church (even as organic as The Living Room is).

Last week I shared with Tom that I don't think I work hard enough to find God... but my counter argument is always, "Well why should I? God is all powerful... he/she can do all the work, I'm tired of trying." Tom said that could very well be part of my problem and that also I might be closer to God if I tried to serve others.

I've always been service minded and Tom let me know of a few places I could be involved with. Even thinking about it has energized me some (mainly more that I get to help someone than anything else).

Anyway, after talking with Tom I went home to where I now live in Decatur. The dogs needed to go out and we have this groovy backyard to let them run around in (it's more like a grotto than anything else, very cool, vines everywhere, really shaded). I was watching them run around and I looked up in the trees for a moment and saw something hanging down from the branches.

After looking at it for a while, it appeared to be two pieces of bark stuck together by some *really* strong cobweb (I tugged on it and it didn't instantly snap like your average cobweb does). The two pieces of bark were stuck together to... look like a cross and it seemed to be hanging there in suspended animation.

I need to make something clear, I gave up on "Signs and wonders" years ago. I was convinced that they didn't happen anymore and they especially didn't happen to me so I approached this "cross" with a lot of pondering and skepticism, but I'm also open to the fact that this could really be a nice "I love you" from God. But regardless, it's been something to think about that's for sure.

It's been two days since I initially saw it and I was sure that with all the wind and rain we'd have that it'd be on the ground somewhere. But lo' and behold, it's still hanging there by this industrial strength cobweb. So this morning I snapped a few shots of it and thought I'd share what I saw.

Once again, I don't know if this was by God or not but regardless, it got me thinking and wondering.

Communion

2008-10-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

Last night after The Living Room community worshiped God, we walked on over to Dwell, our resident intentional community in Grant Park.

Ed and Kathleen provided us with delicious foods and wine. Our patron saint, Keith, thanked God for our meal and we proceeded to feast. This night marked one of the high points of my communing with these fine folks for over a year now.

Aside from the fact that Dwell's awesome layout provided the perfect environment for multiple conversations and the wonderful God-given weather last night, we experienced what Keith was reminded of as he observed, "This reminds me of the disciples gathering at Pentecost!"

The Holy Spirit may not have come in a loud wind, floating flames, and tongues of various languages. Instead, the Spirit came in memorable moments of life-sharing, bonding, laughter, and joy (the wine may have had a minor effect, praise be to God!).

Our community name is something we want to see embodied more often in our interactions, as a welcoming, open, safe, and holy body of all believers.

The Areopagus in Grant Park

2008-09-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday night The Living Room recreated the scene from Acts 17 when Paul addressed the Athenians in the Areopagus (Mars Hill). Sidewalk chalk was used to point arrows from our church to an open field in Atlanta's Grant Park.

However, unlike 2000 years ago pets were welcomed into our Areopagus!

We were all totally unaware that when Dan was leading us in singing songs from Pagan, Native American, and Buddhism. Why did he do this? He wanted to play off of the idea how Paul, in a sense, "lifted up" the faith and religion (and poetry) of the Greeks when he spoke in the Areopagus. Paul met the Athenians were they were and he made a case for Jesus by appealing to the fact that we all come from the same original human (Adam). Even though we sang non-Christian songs we were still able to worship the Christian God.

We ended our gathering with doing communion outside. Doug Resler, who was visiting us and preparing to start a church plant in Madison, Wisconsin, helped lead us in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I don't know how I feel about this but even our four-legged friends partook of some bread and one even drank all our water from the baptismal font!!

Directions to Georgia Avenue

2008-08-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

Friends of TLR:

Here is the address of Georgia Avenue Church, where we will be meeting for our Sunday night worship gatherings starting Sunday, August 3rd @ 5PM:
645 Grant St SE, Atlanta, GA 30312.
It is super easy to find (unlike Tilt Coffee Shop). For a visual, here's a picture of the outside of the church:
And here's a pic from inside:

This Week @ TLR

2008-07-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

Greetings Friends of TLR!

Here's a quick glimpse of what's happened and is happening @ TLR:

Jesus 4 President Tour. This past weekend was a wild success! We passed out an estimated 500 fliers about TLR! I want to personally thank everyone who helped make this event a success. A lot of hard work went into this.

Church Basement Roadshow. Our Sunday night gathering will be @ 7PM at the B-Complex. Click here for directions. Check out our post below to watch a YouTube video about CBR. Please come and help get the word out about this. Contact Dan Ra if you want to help volunteer.

TLR Google Group. This past Sunday night we discussed our need to have greater participation in planning our Sunday night gatherings. We agreed to start a Google Group and to use it as a tool to promote greater involvement and transparency. Join the open-source revolution...

Georgia Avenue. Next Sunday, August 3rd, @ 5PM will be our first worship gathering at Georgia Ave! I have talked with a friend of TLR who who is going to help us get couches and love-seats. We need to build a ramp so that the sanctuary is accessible. Any volunteers? We could buy a portable ramp for about $200 - anyone want to help? Click on the "Make a Donation" button to donate online using our PayPal account.

Dwell. There are 3-4 people from TLR who are prayerfully considering moving into a new intentional Christian community in Grant Park (literally 5 doors down from GA Ave). Please keep this in your prayers. Move in date is September 1st.

We have the keys to test drive Georgia Avenue!

2008-07-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Well friends, I have some exciting news to share with you: starting August 1st we have the keys to test drive meeting in the sanctuary of Georgia Avenue in Grant Park (address is: 645 Grant St SE, ATL, GA). Above is a picture of the sanctuary taken from Troy Bronsink's ordination service. Here are my thoughts on this new opportunity:

Can we afford it? First, Georgia Avenue is owned by the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. On Monday I met with the head of the presbytery and with representative of the Georgia Avenue Food Bank (who use the old Sunday School building). The agreement we reached is for TLR to begin meeting at GA Avenue for one year, sort of like a trial period. We will be sharing the sanctuary with Southwest Christian Fellowship, a traditional historic African-American congregation. We will be sharing the rest of the building with the food co-op and a day care. Together we will pulling funds together to pay for utilities and upkeep. Our share is $100/week, which is $50 less per week than we are paying at Tilt Coffee Shop. And now we will have 24/7 access to a facility and not just 2 hours a week.
Is this a permanent move? One word: no. Friends, I have to be totally honest with you that I'm not sure if this is the right thing for us to do. How will moving into a church building affect the ethos and culture of our community? We meet now in a cool hip "secular" coffee shop - how will meeting in a building with stain glass affect us? Also, now that we have 24/7 access to a building we will become just another overworked Christian community with meetings, meetings, meetings? My hope is that this opportunity will be a blessing and not a curse for our community. But I want us to go into this with our eyes open.
Are we going to sit in pews? Yes and no. I want us to reorganize the worship space in the sanctuary at Georgia Avenue. In the picture above they organized it into a U-shape. This is part of my hope. I am also interested in having people donate or buy some couches from Goodwill and add them to the space. Maybe we could dedicate some couches instead of pews! I want us to have fun and play with our new worship space - the last thing I want is for us is to feel we have to sit all prim and proper in pews :)

The proposal is for us to start meeting at Georgia Avenue starting the first Sunday in August at our new time of 5PM. There is a great independently owned restaurant near Georgia Avenue called Dakota Blue where we could grab a bite to eat after worship.

Please post your comments/concerns/ideas about this opportunity for our community.

Church Basement Roadshow in Atlanta on July 27th

2008-07-09T06:22:00.000-07:00

The Living Room is co-sponsoring The Church Basement Roadshow, A Rollin' Gospel Revival is rumbling across the U.S. this summer, bringing good fun and good news to anyone who will listen. They will be rolling into ATL on Sunday July 27th @ The B-Complex. Here's one of their songs:

No Church This Sunday / New Start Time is 5PM

2008-07-01T21:15:00.000-07:00

Quick note to say that there will be no Living Room gathering this Sunday, in observance of "Freedom From Church Day". The following Sunday, July 13th, we will start our gatherings at 5PM (instead of 7PM) so that we can go out for dinner after our gathering. We will be continuing a new series of conversations on the meaning of communion. We kicked the series off last Sunday night at The Brickstore Pub - yes, we had communion in a bar.

July Newsletter:

2008-07-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends and supporters of The Living Room!

I hope this newsletter finds you well. I write this to you after putting down my children for sleep. I am officially on vacation for two weeks with my children. We have had so much fun doing local day trips to the pool, the zoo, the children's museum - and they even came with me last night to The Living Room! Skylar, my daughter, said to me afterwards, "Hey dad, that was a lot of fun for church". As it says in Psalm 8: "Out of the mouths of babes..."

PCUSA IS EMERGENT? The first bit of news I want to share comes from the recent General Assembly of the PCUSA: Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected moderator of 218th General Assembly. Why is this significant and newsworthy? Read the opening words from the PCUSA news service:

SAN JOSE, June 21, 2008 —The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, 39, an energetic new church development pastor in San Francisco and leader in the "emergent church" movement, was elected moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

This is significant news for many reasons: first, because all things "emergent" will be highlighted by Bruce as he travels the nation these next two years; second, as The Living Room is one of the few explicitly emergent churches in the PCUSA, this is good news for our community! I corresponded with Bruce yesterday and he assured me that The Living Room would definitely be one of his stops. News of Bruce's election was even commented on by Tony Jones, National Coordinator for Emergent Village, who said in his blog, "Bruce offers great promise to the PCUSA in his two-year term - and, let it be said, the PC(USA) has been about the most interested in emergent ideas of any denomination". Hmmm...

JULY IS GOING TO BE BUSY! The Living Room is one of the co-sponsors for the July 19th Jesus For President Tour at Community Fellowship Church and also the Church Basement Roadshow on July 27th. The evening of Saturday, July 19th, will feature a speech by Shane Claiborne, founding partner of The Simple Way and author of The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus For President, the music of The Psalters, and a general carnival atmosphere. Want to help out for this event? I'd love your help with my projects: putting together an online resource for local ministry opportunities. The evening of Sunday, July 27th, will be at The B-Complex and will feature Tony Jones, Doug Paggit, and Mark Scandrette- who are three leaders in the emergent church movement. They are touring the country this summer in an RV to sell their books and put on a rollicking "21st century roadshow revival of that old time religion". Again, if you want to help, let me know. The big need is to raise $400 to help cover the expenses related to this event. Let me know if you want to help out with either of these events - both promise to be TONS of fun and are important outreach events for getting the word out about TLR.

BENEFIT CONCERT TO SUPPORT INNOCENCE ATLANTA: Kit and I have begun to plan a benefit concert to support the work of Innocence Atlanta, an organization raising awareness and working to to eradicate child sex slavery and exploitation in Atlanta. We have a great venue, a couple bands have already agreed to help out, and I will be meeting with Daniel Homrich next week to talk about promoting this event. Our goal will be to raise $500 and, more importantly, to raise awareness of this issue for fans of the participating bands. Do you know any bands (or play in one) that would like to play at this event? Or do you want to volunteer your time/talents to help pull this event off? Then please contact either Kit Fordham or me.

UPDATE ON GEORGIA AVENUE: For the past couple months, we have been praying about the possibility of moving into an old sanctuary in Grant Park called Georgia Avenue. I have already met with our steering committee and with the emergent church committee of my presbytery. I am meeting tomorrow morning with the leaders of the Georgia Avenu e Community Ministry (GACM), who use the old Sunday school building of Georgia Ave. The next step takes place next week when the leaders of the GACM and I will be meeting with Ed Albright, the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, to discuss this opportunity for our community. I sincerely ask for your prayers as we continue to discern God's will.

Well, if you've read all the way down to this line I want to say "thank you"! Please open and read the attached newsletter written by Troy Bronsink that features a story about TLR. There is a lot going on at TLR, and I am thankful that you are a friend or a supporter of this growing ministry. The Spirit is at work, good things are happening, and new opportunities continue to emerge...

Blessings,
Tom Livengood

PS: Interested in helping our ministry financially? You can do so by using PayPal, a safe and easy way to donate online. Click here to make a donation or go anytime to our blog and click the "Make a Donation" button. All donations are administered by the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta on behalf of TLR. Donate with confidence!

PPS: And here is a group photo from one of our recent Sunday night gatherings:

Aren't we an eclectic bunch?

Our Communion Song and Message:

2008-06-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

Click here to listen to our communion song we sung last Sunday night:

Click here to listen to Tom's message before we take communion (also last Sunday night):

Thanks Amy for helping me with this. I'm really trying to be a techno savy kind of guy... but trying is the key word!

Listen, enjoy, share, comment.

Bobby's new article

2008-06-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here's Bobby Williamson's (our "Bible guy") new article: http://sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=777

It's really good, though he forgot to include any mention of TLR ;)

TLR in part

2008-06-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

At The Living Room we don't want to be too comfortable defining ourselves because the moment we do so, we've created standards apart from God's unimaginable dreams for us

Well, I wrote a description on my other blog and I hope this description changes:

i'm a part of the living room. we're a self-described emergent community with a relationship to the pcusa (since tom, is ordained in the pcusa). we meet at tilt coffeeshop in the castleberry hill historic arts district.

our gatherings are unique in that we exercise in local theologizing. we converse, experiment, relate, and wrestle with faith, scripture, culture, and ourselves together to build a dynamic theology for God's kingdom on earth. there is no sermon except for the sermon we create together. and the songs we sing are created by our community for our community. our liturgy is raw and flat, while simultaneously rich and elaborate. it's creative, spontaneous, biblical, mystical, imaginative, and contemplative. we espouse an ancient-future paradigm where we draw from our ancient, historical traditions but create new liturgical expressions as we look towards Jesus' reappearing. our lord's supper is supernatural and symbolic, communal and priestly.

our kingdom mindset is missional where we take with us redemption and beauty towards those in our lives who yearn for those things. we seek the justice of God. the voices of the margins are the voices where God's kingdom erupts. we pray for those who wonder how long they'll sing their song. and we sing those songs along with them.

we're literally young and old. we're multi-ethnic. we come from various christian traditions, or no traditions at all. some of us barely believe in God. but we worship in faith together.

Tim Keller and "The Reason for God"

2008-06-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC, visits Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, "The Reason for God." This event took place on March 5, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series. It is an hour long - but is VERY though provoking:

This Is The Living Room

2008-06-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

Aren't we an eclectic bunch?

2008-05-28T10:33:00.001-07:00

Peter Rollins Lecture:

2008-05-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

This is a great lecture from the author of "How (Not) to Speak of God". It's rather philosophical and long but VERY good!

Press the play button above to listen to this episode

Download Mp3

On The Missional Church:

2008-05-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

So, this week I have been a part of the Thompson Scholar Program where we have shared in conversations about "The Missional Church". I wanted to share some things that I learned and open up an opportunity for us to reflect. So here it goes:

The Church Goes Indoors:

At Pentecost, the church was born! Consider scripture: "As the Father has sent me, so now I'm sending you!"... "As your going, make disciples... baptize... and follow all that I have taught you." "You shall receive the Holy Spirit... to be my witnesses." In other words, the purpose of the church is to be Jesus' agents in the world.

With Constantine, who made Christianity the "state religion" of the Roman Empire, the church began to go indoors. For example, Haggia Sophia as the oldest Christian church is a symbol of a building became the center of a repository of God's grace.

The issue today is that the building is crumbling - "the Titanic is sinking!". For example, PCUSA is #1 in percentage AND total number of people leaving out of the 25 largest denominations. What happens? Continual sadness leads to depression that leads to suicide (the end of PCUSA).

Types of Problems:

Technical problems: problems which can be solved by applying current know how or by some change in how we do things or how we are organized. I.E. Solvable by people in authority.
Adaptive: problems requiring people to change and learn new habits, change their values. Such problems can only be solved by discovering new ways of doing things. People with the problems MUST be involved in finding the solutions.

Key Issue: too often we treat adaptive challenges like technical problems (can I have an Amen!)

Stages in the life of a congregation

The Emergent Phase: maximum experimentation; high innovation; adaptive community;
This is where TLR is.
Key issue for us: to build leadership --> from experimenting to forming, ordering, developing our habits and structures of life together.

That's all for now - whatcha think????

The Living Room Lord's Prayer

2008-05-07T18:35:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday night our community concluded our series of conversations (jams) on The Lord's Prayer by rewriting it (talk about local and contextual theology!) So check out our version of the Lord's Prayer...

We pray like this:

To the One who has always been, and who has always been there with us, may all that you are be sacred to us.

Help us renew your creation by living into your alternative, surprising consciousness that arrives when we seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly before you.

Meet our daily needs as you know them, and help us to be a part of meeting the daily needs of others. Redistribute the resources of the world as needed. Forgive us when we knowingly and unknowingly fail and help us to forgive those who do the same.

Lead us away from temptation and rescue us from all forms of evil and from ourselves. . .

Great Short Video:

2008-04-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is a great short video about the story of Trucker Frank from Tony Jones new book "The New Christians". Please watch and post your comments!