Leadership Forum June 20 ::: Featuring Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette

For anybody within driving distance to Oakland, California, who is interested in the development of faith communities in emerging cultures, you don’t want to miss this event:

Cultivating Faith Communities in Emerging Cultures

Some view our rapidly changing world with great dismay. Others view it with great hope. Join authors and innovators Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette in a hopeful conversation about Cultivating Faith Communities in Emerging Cultures. You’ll have the opportunity to get a closer look at what’s happening on the cutting edge of the church in emerging cultures as Tony, Doug and Mark draw from real-life experience to lead three separate conversations on theology, church planting, and discipleship. A light meal will follow, which includes a Q&A forum with the authors, and opportunities to connect with other local people who are enthusiastic and hopeful about the role of the church in this new world.

Date: Friday, June 20, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. PST

Location: Sequoyah Community Church, 4292 Keller Ave. Oakland, CA 94605

Cost: On-Site = $20 (includes lunch); Off-Site = $15 (no lunch)

Questions: Contact John at jfohara@gmail.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON REMOTE VIEWING: This is a pay-per-view event. To reserve your seat at the live stream, a payment of $15 can be made by clicking the “TIP JAR” on the ustream.tv page on or before Friday, June 19, 2008. This stream will be password-protected on Saturday, June 20!

For those who are not within driving distance but would like to sit in on the conversation, we’ll be live streaming a pay-per-view channel at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/culitvating-faith-communities-in-emerging-cultures

Is AGMergent Toking the Jesus Bong?

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I was outed.

In a recent post, Steve Knight introduces his readers to John Crowder, a clearly pentecostal/charismatic preacher who is apparently tagging himself as “postmodern,” if not wholesale emergent. Steve is tempted to label him an “emergent pentecostal,” but hesitates to do so and points out in a footnote that I may disagree with such an alignment.

Well, I do indeed; which provides a very interesting platform for me to paint a more nuanced picture of what I believe the budding relationship between the charismatic movement and the emergent conversation might actually be.

So here I am, at 11:17 p.m. PST, getting outed by Steve Knight and John Crowder as neither a cessationist (I believe in the continuation of the charismatic gifts, including speaking in tongues and prophecy) nor an unthinking, emotionally-fixated Holy Spirit junkie (I also believe that the entire counsel of Hebrew-Christian scripture has more to emphasize than those charismatic gifts alone, and that we Pentecostals would do well to balance our gifts-of-the-Spirit-diet with some of the fruit of the Spirit… particularly self-control).

My own theopraxis regarding the role of the Holy Spirit, to boil it down, is pretty straightforward:

Pentecost Writing Contest from Jesus Manifesto

The good peeps over at Jesus Manifesto are holding a writing competition in several categories on the subject of Pentecost.  I already submitted my entry (you’ll see it receive mention in the quote) but apparently they’re still shopping for good writers before tossing me the olive wreath by default :).

We’ve got a number of prizes…but only ONE submission so far. I know most folks will wait until the deadline (which is May 11) looms closer…but we could definitely use some submissions.

Maybe this is just my skewed view on the world, but people who claim to make Pentecost a defining characteristic of their spiritual expression should have a word or two in them on the subject.  If you’re interested in, as of now, LITERALLY going head-to-head with yours truly, then submit your stuff at http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/04/01/stepping-into-the-wind-a-pentecost-inspired-writing-competition/

First Meet-Up: No Casualties

I had a delightful time breaking bread and getting to know some of my fellow emerging pentecostal people from around Northern California tonight at our first meet-up.  RevTim was kind enough to record our  conversation for those of us who were there and promises to negotiate fairly with each of you before releasing highly sensitive audio files to the general public (that means you, T.T.)

All kidding aside, it was pretty cool to see ministers get together to talk about philosophy, theology and practice around a table of friendship.  Personally I feel like it was a hit and that there was a good vibe among us.  A whole bunch of ideas that were shared really stuck with me.  Thanks for being a part of it.

If you wanted to join us but had other meetings planned, or were out of the area, there will be other opportunities to get involved in this.  I would love to see local, ongoing conversations emerge out of tonight’s meal.  Please keep the rest of us informed if you’re planning something.  Can’t wait to do this again next year.

Emerging Pentecostal Meet-Up in Sacramento Apr. 22

Note: This is a Re-Post, making one final push for our upcoming meet-up next week in Sacramento.  If you’re in the area, please try to make it!

Join us Tuesday, April 22 for the first meet-up of Emerging Pentecostals for Northern California and Nevada. We’ll talk about the developing relationship between emerging church and the pentecostal movement, our own stories, and developing a framework for ongoing conversation. Tell your friends and come on down.

Sacramento EP Meet Up (.pdf download-and-print flyer)

Sacramento EP Coloring Page (for the kids)

Emerging Pentecostals NorCal Meet-Up

Sacramento, California

4.22.08 @ 4:55 p.m.

Strings Italian Restaurant, 9500 Micron Ave.

E-Mail RSVP by noon on day-of to:

jfohara(at)gmail.com

Just a Thought…

“Here’s a quote from a Korean leader: ‘When I encounter a Buddhist priest, I meet a holy man. When I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager.’”

- 50+ year-old Church Administrative Assistant, who is considering stepping down because she’s disillusioned with the way we do church.

[HT = Jesus Manifesto]

John’s Story

This post is part of a series called “Stories of Emergence.” Tell your story here at Emerging Pentecostal by e-mailing John at jfohara(at)gmail.com.

This may very well be an overstatement, but I think I was emerging when I was lifted out of my mother’s womb. Before I knew the models and forms, before I could differentiate a sense of Self, before I knew the prejudice of preferences I was ever emerging. It was my natural state of being.

I didn’t realize this. It became obscured by the framing introductions of my world view and the limiting characterizations therein. I traded my emergence for identities like

Jonathan’s Story

This post is part of a series called “Stories of Emergence.” Tell your story here at Emerging Pentecostal by e-mailing John at jfohara(at)gmail.com.

I passionately want to be involved in the current mission of God in the world. I don’t want to be where God was five years ago. I want to know where his heart is today.

This is a wonderful idea, and I want to be a part of it. Thus, consider this my story of emergence, or of how I came to be involved with both the pentecostal church and what is commonly called the emerging church.

I met Jesus when I was just shy of fifteen years old, and met him through what you could call a dramatic encounter that took place in an Assembly of God church in Salisbury, North Carolina. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a part of the supernatural actions of God in the world. I wanted to be close to him in tangible ways, and I wanted to bring others to be close to him as well.

As my faith developed, I began to do grow in some very specific ways that together have shaped the person I am now, almost ten years later. First, I began to seek out how I, specifically, should serve Jesus with my life. I looked into being a pastor, a missionary to an obscure country, and a number of other things, because I felt strongly that I was called to reach out to people that were far from God.

Stories of Emergence

Sitting at the Emeryville Public Market yesterday, I was enjoying some Jamaican Jerk Chicken and conversation with two friends about emergence and common threads of concern about the encroachment of postmodern philosophy in our once-stable world views. Each of us probably represent various degrees of buy-in on the idea that the worldwide church is emerging, and whether this phenomenon is cause for alarm. And while our conversation was filled with all kinds of epistemological acrobatics, I realized, in-between sips of ginger beer and bites of beans and rice, that my affinity with Emergent has much to do with the high value placed on friendship and the context of narrative; and that a conversation about emergence within a pentecostal framework would be helped greatly if we took some time to share our stories of emergence.

So what’s your story? To borrow from the metaphor-rich world of football, what has caused the line of scrimmage to move in your world, and how has that affected the way you play the game? I’d like to reserve the next several posts at Emerging Pentecostal for Stories of Emergence, and invite anybody out there with such a story to send them to me: mp3, streaming video, your own favorite blog post, or just write it out in an e-mail… I’ll post them here as a way of introducing this growing interest group to ourselves.

Pentecost: Peace Carried on a Violent Wind

It was a feast to mark the end of the harvest season. Hebrew people, having been scattered throughout the world like so much seed by the whims of political fate and fortune, had gathered in the holy city on pilgrimage to observe Pentecost, the fiftieth day of what was once newfound freedom from harsh Egyptian rule. History had filled the gaps in-between, obscuring at least in part the significance of that miraculous day from the collective memory of those chosen people. With time came the rise and fall of a Jewish dynasty, followed by one oppressive regime after another, leading ultimately to this pilgrimage, standing at the end of a long procession of feasts observed and traditions handed down, today in the shadow of the mighty Roman empire.

One favorite story passed down in the Jewish tradition was of humanity’s first hand at empire-building: the Tower of Babel. The story was told of all humanity sharing a single language and a single dream - to build a monument to itself that would scrape the foundations of heaven. Of course, everybody knows what happens next: Yahweh, in his omniscience, brings confusion and disorder to a race of humans whose highest goal was to honor itself. Who knows what terrible consequences awaited a world in which a megalomaniacal humanity held endless possibilities? And so it was a world splintered, divided, and confused that the Hebrew people walked. Along dirt roads they walked the obligatory mile, with bloodied crosses on a distant hillside casting shadows over their liberty, the chosen walked to Jerusalem, likely wondering what ever happened to the dreams of their fathers. Is this Pax Romana the only way to live?