Emerging Africa

I've been a little scarce over the last few months or so. It's encouraging to meet people who track my online activity and want to know when I'm next writing something - it's easy to forget that I'm able to contribute helpful things and that I'm part of a larger conversation which more and more people are drawn to.

This weekend has also been really encouraging. Nieu Communities hosted a small conversation about what goes on with us in Pretoria North - how we are a particular expression of a way of following Jesus, and how we can journey together with friends, a number of whom joined us at Pangani.

Congratulations to all involved who just made The Bible and Myth post the most commented upon one on the site, ever. I would've read all of the comments, except I don't have 5 free hours - but they all looked good, in a mini-essay-type way. Wow! We could write our own book!

This shows me that there is a need for people to flex their mental muscles and engage in some high level (sometimes difficult to follow) dialogue, which is positive because sometimes there's little space for that in the church (who can prefer to "dumb down" intellectual conversations), and it's great we can do that here. I look forward to tracking the next conversation - whatever that may be!

What books are you reading right now that help you theologically/devotionally/to improve your sense of humour/intellect/sense of rest/whatever? Or perhaps "Dating for Dummies"?! I'm reading "Deconstruction in a nutshell" by John Caputo, "Brendan" by Frederick Buechner and about to start "A spirituality of the road" by the late, great South African missiologist, David Bosch (which reminds me: all going to the South African Missiology Society's conference this weekend (Steve?) - I hope it goes well). I also listen to Abbot Christopher Jameson's "Finding Sanctuary" fairly regularly.

Now that the site is back up (sorry!) and the database is running off the local server (instead of a Media Temple grid server)...it's time to say, "Happy New Year!" (if you noticed a slight logical anomaly in that sentence, give yourself 10 points. If you find yourself annoyed by a full stop in the middle of a sentence already in brackets, subtract 5 points. You too, Linda!).

If you can, get hold of a book called "Chaos" by James Gleick. It's a history of the development of chaos theory, and reads like what the history of the emerging church will be.

A photomarathon is a full day of taking photographs on particular topics. The emphasis is on fun and creativity, and anybody can participate - all you need is a digital camera.

On Nov 3rd, we'll meet at Bryanston Bible Church at 8:30am where we'll have a short introduction to the theme, "Heaven in Ordinary." Heaven can be thought of as an "out there" concept but we want to explore (through photographs) how heaven can break into the daily ordinariness of life in Jozi. There will be 12 topics (given out 4 at a time, at 9am, 1pm and 5pm) for the day and although you can shoot as many pics as you want under each topic, you can only submit a single entry - so at the end of the day you'll hand in 12 photographs.

It's about time we starting thinking about a national (or regional) weekend get-together. There are some interesting options thrown around, like getting N.T. Wright here in 2009. In Joburg we've vaguely planned a Saturday together in Diepkloof (Tom?), Fuzz Kitto is heading here in December, Stephen Murray is exploring options with Reformission/Total Church (yes, I know it's not offically an emerging thing - I just know a lot of the guys on this site would get something out of it).

Cohort: a band of people with a common interest. Cohorts are groups which meet regularly (ish) to talk about issues those in the emerging conversation would identify with. There are 3 (irrefutable, immutable) doctrines:
- good food
- good wine (and/or coffee!)
- good conversation.
If you're able to subscribe to these doctrines - you're in! 2 cohorts will be getting under way over the next month (or so):
Joburg: http://www.emergentafrica.com/joburg
Pretoria: http://www.emergentafrica.com/pretoria

To join a cohort, visit one of the links above then "Subscribe" on the following page. I'll convene the Joburg one, probably over a meal somewhere, and Arthur will be doing something similar in Pretoria. We'll look to probably meet monthly and look at a book or hear someone's story, or spend a day with a good thinker/theologian.

If you're elsewhere in the country, why not start your own cohort? Let me know you're interested and I'll set up a group on the site for you.

I'm immensely enjoying listening to and reading N.T. Wright. I've just finished "The Challenge of Jesus" which looks at the quest for the historical Jesus and then puts Jesus firmly in his context as a first-century Palestinian Jew. In this resource from Emergent UK, he talks about why it is necessary to study Jesus in his historical context (it's way more interesting than it sounds!). He is an intelligent and engaging speaker who is challenging me to go back to the Scriptures.

This is a short response to some imagined critics. As more people start hearing more about the emerging church conversation there are those who make wild claims about what its "adherents" believe ("Brian McLaren doesn't believe in hell!" "These guys reject truth and embrace relativism!" "They reject Biblical authority!" "They don't believe in the Gospel of Jesus!"). Not only are these claims inaccurate, but represent uninformed opinions based not on interacting with those within the emerging conversation (or visiting their churches or having coffee with them) but making assumptions and reading books by "experts" who, ostensibly, have done the above (I point specifically to D.A. Carson's "Becoming conversant with the emerging church" where, in his research, he did not talk to a single emerging church leader or visit any of their churches, and after the book was published he didn't respond to invitations to keep talking).

So, offered to the ether of the internet, is what I (as a firm believer in the value of the global emerging conversation) am not saying: