Emerging Women

Happy Weekend All!

Sorry for no weekly round-up this week, yesterday was a long travel day. I’m writing from the NW Emerging Women’s Gathering outside of Portland. We are in this really cool gathering place. The Edgefield Manor is a hotel, brew pub, winery, and more. There is amazing artwork everywhere and its a very communal space.

We are just getting going this morning, and already I’ve had the chance to meet some amazing emerging women. I’ll do my best to post updates and pictures as the gathering proceeds so we can share this experience with you.

Blessings- Julie

The mainstream definition of the word Pomosexuality refers to the fluid nature of our sexual orientations. While it is convenient to sort everyone into a handful of different groups – homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual – Pomosexuality argues that these words and categories cannot do justice to the complexity of human sexuality. Like many other things in life, sexual orientation isn’t a black and white, either/or experience for many of us. I generally don’t discuss this with other Christians, but my own orientation has been known to slide up and down the Kinsey Scale.

Several years ago I came across this article, of which I will quote the first paragraph:

The Church’s response to sex is a thorny issue. I don’t think we can pretend that our present culture is any more or less obsessed with sex than any other or previous culture, but the issue is evolving constantly. The consequences of sex particularly have changed in the last 30 years, pregnancy and social stigma may be out, but Aids and Chlamydia are certainly in.

The author of this article doesn’t seem to define Pomosexuality in exactly the same way as I attempted to define it in my first paragraph. Rather than referring exclusively to the slippery nature of sexual orientation, this article talks more about what the church’s response should be to what are often referred to as sexual sins: the premarital sex of an engaged couple, single Christians who occasionally have safer sex with a fuck-buddy or one-night stand, the adjustment some couples make after marriage when sex is now “ok” instead of being “sinful.”

What do you think?

How much change (if any) needs to occur in the church regarding issues related to human sexuality?

I’ll share my opinion later.

I received this today and thought it was a nice image.

Dancing With God
When I meditated on the word Guidance,
I kept seeing “dance” at the end of the word.
I remember reading that doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.
When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.
The movement doesn’t flow with the music,
? and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.
When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,
both bodies begin to flow with the music.
One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back
or by pressing Lightly in one direction or another.
It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully.
The dance takes surrender, willingness,
and attentiveness from one person
and gentle guidance and skill from the other.
My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.
When I saw “G: I thought of God, followed by “u” and “i”.
“God, “u” and “i” dance.”
God, you, and I dance.
As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust
that I would get guidance about my life.
Once again, I became willing to let God lead.
My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings
and mercies be upon you on this day and everyday.
May you abide in God as God
abides in you.
Dance together with God, trusting God to lead
and to guide you through each season of your life.

Greetings! I am writing to introduce myself to the community and found it timely to read the post “Whozat New Kid” as I pondered my message. Yes, I am a “new kid on the blog”(oh that sounds goofy!), and to be honest, it causes me to wince a little. You see, lately, new beginnings have been a common theme in my life and I am weary of the plot that has developed. Most of the new beginnings have occurred on a succession of Sunday mornings as my husband and I have been searching for a new faith community. It isn’t that we haven’t ever belonged to a church family for we raised our children in the Presbyterian Church and later found ourselves in the Disciples of Christ denomination, where I explored my call to ministry. But we are yearning for more than we experienced in either congregation and have found it oh so difficult to find. One of the largest roadblocks on this journey has been the lack of hospitality offered by 99% of the churches we have visited. It doesn’t seem that difficult a concept to live out, but we have been truly saddened by the inability of others to accept the “new kids” in their midst. I think this is why I am so excited to connect with other women who appear to understand the essence of community and the power found within genuine welcome.
So, here I am. A woman who is surprised to find herself in the “middle years” of life with all the joys of grand parenting; a woman convinced of a meaningful call to ministry without an “official” place to offer it; a woman eager to connect with others on the journey. There is so much more to the story, but I think this is enough. For I believe this will be a good “new beginning” with plenty of opportunity to continue the conversation. Thanks for the welcome! Christy

I was the new kid precisely once when I was young and remained so for my entire youth. When I was a baby my parents moved from their hometown areas in Massachusetts to Kansas. When I was six we moved back to the restrictive confines of New England and an insular small town in Vermont. My parents remain in that small town and are still considered new comers … 40 years later! (Psst … do not do the math … I’m hiding my age )

Fortunately for me that was my one and only experience of not quite belonging. I have spent the rest of my life being pleasantly surprised by the capacity of people to incorporate new friends into their midst. I went to college and blew out my horizons by studying political science and international studies. So I went to Washington DC to change the world or become a foreign services employee. Instead I met my husband … became ADD and have done some very different things over the course of our 20 year marriage (do not do the math).

I was raised in a family where God was not that important. We didn’t go to church and my parents still tend to believe that faith is a crutch for those who are mentally weak in some manner. I’m the oldest of three children and fight my bossy-big-sister tendencies all the time. And I know there are some who might say that this faith of mine began in some sense as a rebellion against my parents. Sobeit. God takes our sacrifices no matter how meager and uses them to change us.

I began my journey of faith in an Evangelical Free Church in the very early 90′s. I’ve been a Sunday School teacher, a youth worker, a Bible Study teacher, a small group leader, and house church leader. We left that church 2003 for many different reasons that are all too lengthy to list here. It’s an unhealthy church. We now refer to it as the Church we Left Behind (CLB).

We’re now part of an emerging community of faith. I’m part of the group that plans and organizes our worship experience each Sunday. I get to teach and lead worship every so often, which is to say, when it’s a subject that I’m passionate about. Being a part of this community takes so much more intentionality, transparency and basically hard work … but the reward is occasional glimpses of the Kingdom. That makes it all worthwhile.

Yes, I have a blog which you’re welcome to visit as you wish. I write there under the penname aBhantiarna Solas, which means Lady of Light in Celtic. I’m looking forward to listening more here, and chiming in occasionally. I’ve promised some book reviews on women in ministry and those will begin popping up here and there. You may promptly beat them down in a virtual game of Whack-A-Mole. But … enough about me …

I just wanted to give a brief update about a few things going on with the upcoming Emerging Women Midwest Gathering (see sidebar for more info). Registration is beginning to fill up, but there is still plenty of room for whoever wants to attend. We have had a number of requests for scholarships and student rates and we want to help as many as possible attend. If you would like to help support this gathering by sponsoring a scholarship (whether you are attending or not) it would really help us be able to offer help to those who need it.

We also are still looking for a few more workshop leaders. So if you plan on attending and have a topic you would like to lead a workshop on let us know. Our theme is “Re-Imagining the Kingdom” and we are looking at new forms of worship, of being a believer in this day and age, and of doing church.

So if you are interested in leading a workshop or in contributing to the scholarship fund, email me at emergingwomen@gmail.com for more information.

Thanks!
Julie

I found this and thought it was important to share.

Pledge of Resistance:

“We believe that as people living
in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices
done by our government,
in our names

Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions
of blood for oil

Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families
on foreign soil

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed evil

Not by our will
and Not in our name

We pledge resistance

We pledge alliance with those
who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war
or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world
to bring about justice,
freedom and peace

Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real.”

The Not In Our Name Pledge of Resistance was created collectively by artists and activists in April 2002 as a means of inspiring protest and resistance. It is at the heart of the Not In Our Name Project.