GENERATE exists as a forum to retell the stories of the grassroots communities and individuals who are finding emergent and alternative means to follow God in the Way of Jesus. We hope to create an artifact of this historical conversation. These stories will be transmitted through narrative, works of visual art, documented performances, verse, fiction, non-fiction, essays, and interviews.

We/you are the conversation; our art, our lives, our hopes and failures all meet up with God’s approaching dreams for creation. We converse and in doing so spread the news that we are not alone — that joy is found in our generative friendship.

The first issue will be printed this summer, and they’ve put out a general call for submissions:

We are seeking writers, poets, thinkers, artists, bloggers, tricksters, students, educators, musicians, clergy, skeptics, mystics, sinners and saints — plus everyday janes and joes — to submit original, recent works that explore, probe, rethink/reframe, question, hack, contemplate, and offer insight into the growing global conversation about following God in the Way of Jesus — its intersections, its life, its resultant creativity and community practice.

• Submit original works to submissions@generatemagazine.com

Hello! We might have already met at an Emergent Convention, or at your blog or mine (Urban Abbess or Magpie Girl). Now I’m the contributing editor for Religion and Spirituality at BlogHer.com I’m trying to rustle up great posts to feature in my Monday column on Religion and Spirituality.

I’ve been following your blog for awhile now, and was wondering if you’d like to be on my mailing list of Spirituality Writers. It’s a select group of bloggers, and I’d love to have you along. You wouldn’t get a ton of email from me. I would just send out periodic requests for gridblog participation on a given topic. Then I would feature some of the most relevant posts on BlogHer, and maybe at my personal blog as well.

If that sounds interesting to you, reply to this email and ask me to include you on the Spirituality Writers mailing list. I’d love to have you along for the journey.

Shalom,

Rachelle Mee-Chapman

Contributing Editor, BlogHer.com

http://www.blogher.com/blog/rachelle-mee-chapman

P.s. Please feel free to pass this email along to women bloggers you love, even if they only write occasionally about religion and/or spirituality.

Rachelle Mee-Chapman

moi (at) magpie-girl (dot) com

http://www.magpie-girl.com

Each Tuesday this September we’ll be discussing themes from The Faith Club, an interfaith journey between three women friends — a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian. It’s an easy, engaging and rich read — if you’re busy, keep it in the car and read at stop lights, or a sneak in a few minutes before bed. If you haven’t started yet, come join the conversation and share your reflections and experiences.

The beginning of the learning year is a good time to look out into the world, as well as into our own hearts to discover what it means to understand, appreciate and grow in relation to people, faiths and experiences very different from our comfort zone.

This week I invite you to share your experiences with people from different faiths, both positive, negative and whatever ambiguous feelings lie in the spaces between these poles.

1. When was the first time (if ever) you had a close friendship with someone of a different religious background?

2. On page 28, someone is quoted saying, “‘I never liked that word “tolerance.” It’s too passive. Think about it. To tolerate someone? That doesn’t sound very positive. It’s not a call to engage and understand someone else. I like the phrase “‘mutual appreciation.’”

What do you think of the word “tolerance?” Do you have any alternatives that you find have more to offer?

3. Why is interfaith friendship and conversation important?

I am a graduate student in English and the wife of a campus minister … We have a baby boy who is 5 months old. We’ve been thinking about how to teach him about Jesus (of course) and I’ve been looking for children’s books. I am having a difficult time finding good books for children, and I’m wondering if you might have any recommendations. Perhaps this could be a good post on the blog. Many of the books I find portray Jesus as a white man or assign stereotypical roles to women and men. I would also love to teach him to pray for children in poverty, and I can’t seem to find any books on this!

So I contributed my $.02 -

I’m with you on the children’s books thing. So many that I find (or have been given to me) are just awful. I’ve yet to find any good Jesus books for kids, but there are a number of decent spirituality books out there. Some of my favorites include -

The Lord’s Prayer and The Twenty-third Psalm – by Tim Ladwig (uses the familiar words with fantastic artwork that portrays inner-city life)

and books from the Early Childhood Spirituality series like – Where is God?, What is God’s Name?, and How Does God Make Things Happen? (most by Laurence Kushner or Sandy Eisenburg Sasso). These books are very multicultural and focus on love and grace. They have full picture books and board book varieties (a necessity with my toddler).

and (although they are not “Christian” – by label, not intent) I like the values taught in the Todd Parr line of books like The Peace Book and The Feelings Book. (Emma especially like the idea of peace being enough pizza in the world for everyone, she’s two)

and I think they are out of print, but the allegorical stories in The Tales of the Kingdom series by David and Karen Mains have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid.

But I would love to find “bible” stories that aren’t warped in some way. That don’t change the story drastically to be suitable for kids, that don’t reduce scripture to a plithy fable, or that don’t teach individualistic “me” centered theology.

So I present the question here to the diverse community that meanders to this blog. What do you recommend?

Hi, I’m Erin Word (you might know me as Lily), and I have a blog called Decompressing Faith. Let me introduce you to my friend Pam Hogeweide, who writes for Off-The-Map and has a blog called How God Messed Up My Religion. We are the June, 2007 guest editors for The Porpoise Diving Life, a widely read ezine which focuses on issues of church and faith.

Our theme for this issue: “Progress: Faith in a Dress”

Deadline: This project landed in our laps on Friday, May 18th, and all submissions must reach us by midnight pacific time Monday, May 28 for consideration. A tight deadline, but let’s go for it!

What we are looking for: Submissions from emerging and missional Christian women. Free, out-of-the-box thinkers. Alternative expressions of faith. Wild and crazy, postmodern approaches to theology. Church misfits. Women on the edge. Stained-glass-ceiling rule-breakers. Diverse perspectives are entirely welcome! If you identify with any of those statements, we want to hear from you! Poetry, prose, fiction…you name it, we’ll read it. We also are looking for book and music reviews, if that is more your style.

Anything you submit must be your own original work: It may have been published elsewhere (like on your blog, for instance) and we will still consider it, as long as it is not under copyright. There are no strict word-count parameters; we are aiming for a maximum of 1000 words. We also ask that all submissions be written by women and in English.

Here are some ideas to start with: these are not meant to be strictly adhered to, only to help get you thinking – any other ideas you have are quite welcome. Also, some of the questions refer to your “ministry”. The word “ministry” here is whatever it means to you: your home, your family and friends, your workplace, your neighborhood, your church, the homeless, pagans, minorities, foreigners…however you see it to be in your life.

• Can women lead men?
• Are women effective leaders and thinkers in the body of Christ?
• What is the place for social minorities in Christianity?
• What does emerging or missional work look like in your life?
• How do you see gender equality in matters of faith?
• What do you see as the primary role of the Church?
• What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about women in ministry?
• What are the greatest gifts women bring to ministry?
• Who are some of your emerging/missional women heroes?
• How do you perceive your mission field and how do you reach it?
• What have some of your struggles been as a woman of faith?
• How do you see women in ministry changing over the next 25 years?
• How has your expression of or role in the church changed or grown in the last 5 years?
• How has your theology changed in the last 5 years?
• How has your theology changed in the last 5 years?

Please include with each submission: the title of your submission as you would like it to appear, your full name, e-mail address, and blog or website url (if applicable). Please also indicate to us if you would like your e-mail address and/or url to be published with your submission. This is an opt-in only: if you don’t specifically tell us to include your e-mail or url in the publication, we won’t.

One more thing: we are compiling a list of books, blogs and resources which support the concept of gender equality and in support of women in all levels of Christian leadership and ministry. If you have any ideas, be sure to pass them along!

Pam Hogeweide
Erin Word

Elsie also writes – “The centering prayer website recommended in the presentation is www.centeringprayer.com. The text of the most popular book on centering prayer, Open Heart, Open Mind by Thomas Keating, is available at www.centeringprayer.com/OpenHeart/index.htm – note, this link isn’t directly accessible through the main website so be sure to bookmark it.”

I wanted to pass along a new resource I came across. Apparently Christianity Today has created a site called Gifted for Leadership to encourage women to use the gifts God has given them. It seems to just be getting going, but has some good articles posted so far. It’s worth checking out.