Emerging Africa

My wife recently got the DVD of the film Ostrov (The Island), which I've blogged about at Notes from underground: Reviving the Russian Soul and Ostrov (The Island - film.

If anyone in the Tshwane area would like to come over to see it and discuss it, please let me know (at hayesstw@gmail.com) and we can arrange a time.

During the last month I've seen a couple of attacks on the "emerging church" by South African bloggers. I blogged about the specific attacks at The emerging menace in South Africa, so I won't repeat the specifics here.

I've read about or heard about attacks on "emerging church" in other places, and I've usually skipped them because they usually mention strings of names of people I've never heard of, or, if I have, whose views I'm not familiar with, so I have no way of knowing how accurate the criticisms are, and the critics rarely explain where they themselves are coming from.

Tomorrow is a bit of a crunch for me.

For almost two years now I've been sniffing around the fringes of this "emerging conversation", first trying to find out what it is, then trying to find out what it is about.

I've heard a couple of fundis on it -- Brian McLaren and Alan Hirsch -- speak on various aspects of it.

Bishop Atanasije of Belgrade, Serbia, will be visiting South Africa from 17-23 October, and will speak on “The forgotten ways — monasticism and the church fathers in the modern and postmodern world”.

This could be of interest to "emerging church" people, especially those who are interested in such things as new monasticism and the forgotten ways spoken about by people like Brian McLaren and Alan Hirsch.

He'll be speaking at St Thomas's Serbian Orthodox Church, 14 Tana Road, Sunninghill Park, Johannesburg, on Saturday 18 October 2008 at 5:00 pm.

For more information, see The forgotten ways on my Khanya blog.

A synchroblog with the theme "maturity" is being planned for 17 September.

Anyone interested in participating should contact Phil Wyman at his blog Square no more before 16 September.

Yesterday I visited Nieu Communities and Roger Saner suggested a Pretoria Christian bloggers gathering. It struck me as a good idea -- it would be nice to meet face to face as well as reading each other's blogs. Perhaps we could widen it to Tshwane, to include people from places like Akasia, Soshanguve and Centurion.

Does anyone else in the area think it's a good idea? And if so when and where?

We could meet at someone's house, or for coffee at a coffee shop somewhere (Greenfields in Hatfield is a wireless hotspot, in case anyone can't bear the thought of being unplugged for an hour or two).

Today a group of 50 bloggers are blogging about the term "missional". A few South Africans are participating, and my contribution (with links to the others) may be found here.

In calling for a missional synchroblog Rick Meigs says:

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some discussion on the fact that the "emerging conversation" in South Africa has been predominantly white.

Cobus van Wyngaard has blogged about this. Reggie Nel has responded. I have commented on this in my Khanya blog.

How many people will be blogging for human rights on Thursday (15 May 2008)?

If you haven't heard about this before, there's more info on my Khanya blog.