Emerging Women

Sorry for the slow week here, I’ve been trying to recover from Christianity 21. I think the event was so different from what any of us expected that most of us who attended are having a hard time trying to process what happened there. Those who have posted so far have focused on moments of reflection or their emotional processing of the event. It’s hard to explain, so I think it’s best if I just link to some of the posts being put out there about C21. As I come across more, I’ll add them here (and please send links if you find any or write something yourself).

I (Julie Clawson) posted my initial thoughts here

Christina Whitehouse-Suggs wrote on Drunk on the Wine of New Love

Danielle Shoyer gave a recap

Imago’s blog posted some reflections

Tony Jones looked back at the event.

Seth Donovan talked about starting in a new place.

Pam Heatley compared C21 to a tropical vacation

Shula at Sensuous Wife blogs her reaction to the event.

Rachel Swan posted a few thoughts

Jules, The Wonderer, posted her first reflections

Don Heatley has created an amazing highlight video from the event that really helps capture some of the themes that emerged there.

And for some fantastic pictures from the event, visit Courtney Perry’s Christianity 21 photostream (the picture here is hers) or Jay Bakker’s flickr.

and if you want to witness for yourself the amazing live sketching Paul Soupiset did at the event, watch them here, here, here and here

Oh, and I’m super excited about the new publishing house, Sparkhouse, which launched recently. They created a video at C21 about sparking new life into the church.

This was a significant event that I believe will shape the future of such conversations in the church. I look forward to seeing where it leads.

crossposted from Emerging Pensees

Even as debate erupts across the blogosphere about whether Emergent is fizzling as a movement, those of us still committed to the friendships and ideas we’ve found here are going ahead with ideas for how to keep the ball rolling and continue to get more and more people connected with the conversation. A few days ago I posted a question here at my blog and at the Emergent Village Cohort Leaders Google Group about what Emergent Village could do to help emergent-leaning folks in rural areas get connected with one another and with the broader emerging conversation, whether through cohorts or other means. The ensuing discussion was very productive, and has resulted in a project to create a comprehensive google map of what’s going on in the Emergent Village world.

In keeping with Emergent Village’s desire to be a network of emerging people and communities, the goal with this map will be to create a resource to help network folks with what is going on in their own local area, or help them start something new if there isn’t anything already. This will include existing cohorts, as well as any “emerging churches” who don’t mind being listed on the Emergent Village website.* The map will also include individuals who are interested in being a part of a cohort, but don’t currently have one near them. Our hope is that as more people add themselves to this map, it will become a lot easier for them to find one another and start new cohorts.

We’ve decided to start by open-sourcing this map, basically letting anyone and everyone who wants to add themselves or their faith community – no gatekeepers or approval system, though those of us in the cohort network will help make sure it stays free of trolls. We’ll start passing the link to the map around through blogs/Twitter/Facebook, etc. (that’s where you come in and inviting folks to add their churches and cohorts (or themselves if they’re not yet part of one and want to be). Hopefully it will snowball, and in a few weeks or months we’ll have a thorough and exciting map of what is going on and where. How cool will it be to be able to see just how much this conversation has grown in the past decade!

So here’s the link again. I hope you’ll help us create this thing!

*Of course we realize that there may be emerging ministries out there who do not wish to be “affiliated” with Emergent Village in any official way, for any variety of reasons, even if just on a google map. Nonetheless, those of us in the Emergent Village are happy to partner with any faith community that doesn’t mind calling itself a “friend of Emergent Village,” and hope that many communities will choose to add themselves to our map.

Christianity 21: Faith in the 21st Century

21 Voices
21 Ideas
21 Minutes Each

We live in a time of epochal change.

Many find this change exciting; for others, it’s a challenge. Call it globalization, pluralization, or postmodernism, this change affects our economy, politics, government, and education—all of society. And, of course, our faith and our churches are not immune to change.

So we have gathered 21 of the most important voices for the future of Christianity—21 voices for the 21st century—to speak into our future as people of faith in this age. They represent a diverse array of backgrounds, interests, and passions, and they will provide a wide range of innovative and challenging presentations.

Christianity21 is less a conference and more a happening, an event—a gathering of voices and ideas that will shape the future of our faith. And to the 21 voices, we want you to add your voice, whether you’re a seeker or skeptic, leader or layperson, disciple or doubter.

We hope you consider joining your voice to ours at Christianity21.

Friday, October 9 – Sunday, October 11
Colonial Church of Edina
6200 Colonial Way
Minneapolis, MN 55436
$195

I am really excited about this event. I’ll can’t wait to hear from these presenters, and I get to join them as I will be speaking on “seeking justice in the everyday.” A number of emerging women leaders will be speaking at this event – many who have been part of the community of this blog. For a full list of presenters click here.

I think this will be a gathering where we can really dig deep and explore where faith is headed in the 21st century. We can’t ignore that changes are happening around us, and I appreciate the opportunity to think out loud with others about what this all means. So stick it on your calenders and plan on join us in October!

I want to let you know about an exciting new resource for the Emerging Church – GENERATE Magazine. Makeesha Fisher, who many of you know through this blog, has been working on putting together a magazine for the emerging church for some years now, and I’m excited to see this moving forward. From the website:

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

I am happy to announce that the long awaited changes here at Emerging Women have finally arrived. I’m excited to be moving ahead with this community and look forward to our future conversations. Most of the Emerging Women members already know about these changes, but for the broader community of readers, here’s a summary of what’s happening and why.

- From now on, Emerging Women will exist exclusively at this domain – www.emergingwomen.us. Some of you may already be using this address, but until now it simply forwarded to the blogspot site. We will no longer be hosted at Blogger, so please update your links!

- The continued growth of Emerging Women means that we can no longer function as a membership based blog – there’s just too many of us! But we will continue to be as open source as possible. We still want the blog to represent the voices and thoughts of a wide variety of women, so we are looking for your submissions. We are still looking for articles, book/movie reviews, stories, interviews, creative writings, questions, resources, links, and news items to share on the blog. So feel free to send those submissions at any time to emergingwomen(at)gmail(dot)com to be posted.

- But even without membership, Emerging Women desires to be a resource helping connect those in the emerging church to the women’s voices in its midst. We will continue to have two blogrolls for this purpose. One will feature any (appropriate) emerging woman blogger who wants to be on the list. The other will include any websites, organizations, or men’s blogs who want to be “friends of emerging women.” The point is to connect us all together.

- All of the old posts are here at the new blog. It just might take some time to update the author info on each one.

I’m excited to see how the conversation develops and look forward to reconnecting with all of you here.  As we get the conversation rolling here, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  How can this blog be improved? What topics do you wish we would cover?  What activities should we resurrect (book club, weekly round-ups…) or create for the blog?  What resources should we provide?  How can we best serve women in the emerging church conversation?

- Julie Clawson