Spencer Burke sent this out as a part of TheOozeletter today.
This year Soularize is a counter intuitive relational learning party
There are three important reasons why we chose the Bahamas;
This is the first international venue for the missional / emerging conversation. I am surprised how many people in the USA are unaware of how difficult and expensive it is for our international friends to come to US. It is only 60 miles off of our coast but it makes a world of difference for many desiring to engage on neutral ground.
We are always connected to a local ministry and spend a year or more working with them on the event to ensure this is not a "road show". All of the creativity and experiences are in collaboration with Clint, Tim, Kelly, Gillian, Christian (New Providence Community Church) and local artists, musicians and families. You should check out all of the spaces we are using to create the conversation and learning experiences Soularize, (no hotels or conference centers).
It is hard to fight the perception of the Bahamas - cost was one of the factors (although it is cheaper to fly from NYC, Minneapolis, Seattle and Canada, stay in our host hotel and pay the registration fee for Soularize than it is to fly to a San Diego conference). Soularize has been the one safe place for those who have left the comfort of the established church and their conference budgets. Many have to take time off of work as well. But this has become more than a conference, for some, it is a family gathering. It is always great to see the friendships pick up from last year and new ones begin. The key to Soularize is relationships. Online 24/7, in person Oct. 25-27, 2007.
Below is some Soularize Resources, please pass the word on and I hope to see you on the sand with the rest of my friends Frank Viola, Becky Garrison, Karen Ward, Mark Scandrette, Kristyn Komarnicki, Michael Dowd, Barry Taylor, Dwight Friesen, Jim Palmer, Gareth Higgins, Ron Martoia and more being added weekly.
Myth Busters Myth #1 - The Bahamas is too Expensive Fact - October is the Off Season with great deals on airfare and hotels
Myth #2 - The Emerging conversation is limited to the USA Fact - We chose the Bahamas because it is an International venue, it may be a short flight from Miami, but it is a huge leap towards our friends
Myth #3 - Conventions are talking heads in stuffy rooms Fact - Soularize includes a Private Island, Art Studios, Swimming w/Sharks, Social Networking website, Beach Reclamation Project
Myth #4 - Big name speakers equal big impersonal crowds Fact - We limited the event to 500 attendees, with a key note line up of the decade (N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Fr. Richard Rohr)
There will also be some Canadians there. We will be the ones playing road hockey on the private island while swimming with the man eating sharks.
Two Years in the Planning - Less Than 90 Days to Register Host Spencer Burke has popped the creative cork off Soularize the original /catalytic emerging church gathering
Key Note Line Up of the Decade N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Fr. Richard Rohr
International Conversation and Venue - Nassau Bahamas Take advantage of off season rates and ease of travel for our international friends
Five Learning Modes of Engagement Keynote, Small Groups, Extended Experience, Reflective Time, 24/7 Web Collaboration
Varied Relational Environments Private Island, Art Studios, Swim w/Sharks, Social Network, Lecture Hall, Limited to 500 attendees
Totally Wired Conference Free T-1 wireless access, Live Web Interface with polling, chat, webcams, whiteboard
Most Progressive and Diverse Workshop Facilitators Frank Viola, Becky Garrison, Karen Ward, Mark Scandrette, Kristyn Komarnicki, Michael Dowd, Barry Taylor, Dwight Friesen, Jim Palmer, Gareth Higgins, Ron Martoia...
Knowing that all have limited budgets to invest in annual learning opportunities, we hope you take opportunity to compare the Soularize learning experience with a few of the other national learning opportunities happening this coming year. Perhaps you'll be as surprised as we were that an event in the Bahamas is actually cheaper than attending an event in San Diego (see comparison chart) . So if you're looking for a more progressive, independent, and cost-effective learning experience in a tropical setting, perhaps you should consider joining us for the Soularize learning experience.
What makes Soularize unique is the learning environment. We create a casual, safe and interactive place where you can wrestle with issues your church and faith are facing today. You'll engage in a wide variety of learning experiences like facilitated groups of less than 50 people, hands-on learning experiences, main sessions with keynote speakers, and workshops. Open times in the schedule offer chances for you to reflect and refresh in a hammock overlooking the Caribbean.
Come and lend your voice, your experience, and your dreams as we explore the Evolving Church - rethinking and reinventing what the Church could be in years ahead. Learn more - http://www.soularize.net/
Signs of Emergence is now available in North America
Sings of Emergence is now out in Canada and the United States. I reviewed the U.K. version of the book on my blog but with the American release of the book, I thought it was worth a repost. I also submitted a review into TheOoze for the book but I think it is still in the publishing backlog.
I got the North American release of the book the other day and I was blown away to see an endorsement by me for the book. It wasn't shocking that I endorsed it but for the first time in print, my name was spelled correctly :-)
If you don't own the book, go out and get it.
A couple of years ago when The Complex Christ came out, I plopped down some puny Canadian dollars, exchanged them for British pounds and bought the book from Amazon UK and eagerly waited for it to be shipped across the Atlantic. When it did arrive in Canada, I had to plop down some more Canadian dollars, this time to the Canadian Borders Services Agency to free it from them. After paying three times what the book cost in shipping and duties, I sat down and started reading. The book was worth the cost and the wait.
The good news is that the book is being released in North America by Baker Publishing under the name Signs of Emergence with the easy to remember subtitle, A Vision for Church That Is Always Organic/Networked/Decentralized/Bottom-Up/Communal/Flexible/Always Evolving which means no more British pounds, no more voyages across the Atlantic, and no more donations to the Canadian treasury. The author, Kester Brewin is blogging at the official Signs of Emergence weblog so you can get a feel for his thinking and writing while you are waiting for your book to arrive (it doesn't ship in North America until July 1st). Since my copy is still The Complex Christ, I am going to refer to it as Signs of Emergence in this review but when I quote from it, it will be from The Complex Christ and use those page numbers.
The book is as complex as the topic he covers and each time I have read the book, different things have hit me. Because of my context of involvement with Resonate and Church of the Exiles right now, I'll concentrate on the ideas that from those perspectives.
Revolution vs. Evolution
What I was younger, I loved the idea of the revolution. One of my favorite books still is Rules for Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki and Gary Hamel's book Leading the Revolution had an early impact on me (for good and for bad). My own neighborhood has seen church closings and no new church plants coming in to replace them so it seems like a perfect time for a revolution to me. However Signs of Emergence reminds me that there is a different way to go and that is the path of evolution. It reminds me that we need to take a closer look at what kind of change we are asking for. Revolution brings about change but they also seed havoc, pain, and suffering as well. Is that the kind of change that the church needs to be looking at? Brewin says no and starting on page 25, he makes a powerful cause for evolution.
Our history, both ancient and modern, has been transfixed by the idea of revolution, of radical change precipitated quickly, requiring an uprising, an insurgence, a head of pressure and a focusing of force; demonstrations, coups d'etat, armed struggles, wars and regime changes. Warriors, dictators and their critics have been clear about it for centuries. Chairman Mao Zedong wrote that 'a revolution is not a dinner party. It cannot be so leisurely and gentle... It is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another'; Paul Virilio in Speed and Politics that 'revolution will soon be entirely reduced to a permanent assault on time. The man on the battlefield has no safety other than in suicidal entrance into the very trajectory of the speed of [the guns]'; and Napoleon that 'the strength of a revolutionary army should be evaluated as in mechanics, by its mass multiplied by its speed'. Through all their blood and violence many of our politicians seem to believe that these revolutions bring genuine transformation. Yet it is abundantly clear that materially, politically, psychologically and spiritually, violent change tends to shear, to break the whole as one surface part moves and leaves the rest of the body behind unaltered.
In his seminal work Future Shock, Alvin Toffler describes the psychological damage that occurs to people when they are overwhelmed by intense change. He talks about 'future shock' being a disease of change, a sickness that people suffer that not so much about the direction of change as the rate of it. Future shock, he says, 'grows out of the increasing lag between ... the pace of environmental change and limited pace of human response'. In other words, for our own health, we need change to occur not at revolutionary speeds demanded by power-wielding dictators or company board rooms, but at the evolutionary speeds of the empowered human body.
Party in response to Toffler's concerns, people have begun to see that the nature of change has been itself been required to change. If we are to transform the whole, and truly alter the very nature of things for good, then the mode of change cannot be revolution but evolution. A gradual development over a long period of time. As Robert Warren notes, 'A good case can be made for evolution being the best single word summary of an Anglican approach to change. It suggests creativity [and] responsiveness to present environment'.
The slowness of evolution certainly has a divine beauty about it with its gentle, unseen transformation so hard to plot yet so undeniable in its force. We would like change immediate effect -- we want revolution -- but God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are higher than our. Despite this, as we will see in the next chapter, we have projected our revolutionary tendencies onto God, and it is only as revelation has become clearer over time that we have seen that ours is not a God of violent uprising, but of slow, slow evolution. So since forever, and until whenever, those that have sought to change God's way have had to endure a prefix of...
As Sarah waited: Ninety years for a son to fulfill God's promise.We wait in hope for what we thought had been spoken to us.
As Moses waited: 40 years in the desert, being prepared by God to lead his people.We wait for emptiness and humility; for bravado to wither.
As Israel waited: 40 years of wandering, hungry, depressed, thirsting, unsure.We wait for the right time to act
As the Prophets waited: 1000 years of promises that God would raise up a Saviour.We wait for the signs that God has not forgotten.
As Mary waited: 9 months of her 14 years for the child of God.We feel the birth-pains, yet fear for the child.
As John the Baptist waited: Scanning the crowds for the one whose sandals he would not be worthy to untie.We long for an experience of the Divine
As Jesus waited: 30 years of creeping time.40 days in the desert of temptation.3 years of misunderstanding.3 days in the depths of hell.So we wait for God's time. Preparing the way.
Our turn to toil on leveling mountains and straightening paths.Our turn to watch the horizon.
Our turn to pass on the hope that He who promised is faithful and will come back.
What do we do as we wait. Signs points us to Walter Brueggemann's reminder that the first stage in this is grief which is not often popular in today's church culture where assurance and vision outweighs the acceptance that society no longer cares what is happening in most churches. Brewin asks and answers the question of where are the Jeremiah's of today, those to help us confront our grief in today's church. The answer is those are found on the fringes of the church culture.
Signs asks us another hard question and that is what if God no longer is interested in what we are doing? From pg 35 and 36.
Once we have grieved, our tear-washed eyes can then properly open to the shocking fact that God allowed this to happen. God allowed us to climb this little peak. The denial may be over, and the cover-ups exposed, but a deeper resistance still remains. How could God do this? In the midst of our waiting for the news, we meet this intractable issue: if we are seeking the new, then what we practicing was the old, and therefore God was not in what we were doing any more. God has moved on back down the mountain while we stayed up our comfortable hillock.
Such a divine departure is rightly shocking to us. We see an example of it described in Ezekial 10: God ups and leaves the temple. To a people that had become over-familiar and blase about God's presence with them in the temple, to a people who had become complacent about their special status as The Chosen, God showed God's holiness. God got us and left. Bored by our ramblings, navel gazing conversation about internal tinkering, God hung up. God walked off, displacing a true, holy freedom that shouts clearly over its shoulder that no temple, no place, no people, no box, no church, no agenda, no theological position will ever require me to stay where I don't want, be co-opted into something I only half agree with, be pressed into the service of some cause you made up because I AM who I AM. And SLAM, the door shuts and we left alone to wonder about God's holiness, God's transcendence, God's otherness, God's separateness, God's difference.
As we enter this dangerous place of stopping and waiting we must face the possibility of experiencing God's disinterest. Where we have proclaimed "God is in this" we must be prepared that God can and does leave. One need only consider for a second the other point where God was unable to leave any ministry, any place, any attempt at work, and we see that it would quickly draw us down the same path to the god who, not being allowed to permit suffering, intervened every time a child stepped toward a sharp object.
God will not be co-opted into our programs. And this actually turns out to be the foundation of huge hope. For if God could no leave, then we would be bound and trapped for ever inside structures that God "might just be blessing".
Power and the City
Power and influence is a huge part of the evangelical church. Robert Webber said in an interview with Vineyard's Cutting Edge magazine years ago that evangelicalism was about two things. Big buildings and influential pastors. A couple of weeks ago, I read this Washington Post story on Baltimore Raven's head coach Brian Billick. Here is the quote that stuck out in my mind, "But for generations, the mandate of the NFL coach had remained unchanged: Get as much power as you can and don't let go."
Brewin is calling us to do it differently. How do we walk away from power and re-orientate ourselves as the church in the world. On page 45 Kester's call is for us to become born again.
The Church now seems to stand in the same place as God stood 2500 years ago: misrepresented, accused of bigotry, portrayed as narrow minded and in love with power, only interested in buildings, ready to smite the dirty and sinful, over-occupied with sex, and ready to lend support to unjust wars... And so we must do as God did, as Christ commanded and exemplified: we must be born again. Become nothing, removed of strength and power and voice and means and language...
We must re-emerge and grow up again in the place we are meant to serve. Understand it, learn from it, be in it, love it, listen to it, wait 30 years before speaking to it. We must, like God, discard any thoughts that revolution is going to effect change in the Church or our world, and become dedicated to change by evolution.
Brewin's advice to the church is to leave power behind and take a different path forward. In that he is calling those in North America anyway, to take the path less followed. How do we do that? According to Kester, one of the ways is to engage in an urban theology. He reminds us that over half of us in the world live in the cities, our theology remains quite rural as it was developed largely before urbanization. My own tradition of Methodism early history was dominated by John Wesley and his horse as they traveled from town to town across England and most of my current tribe's congregations are located in small cities and towns across Canada (well from Quebec west). It is going to take a major rethinking of what urban theology is going to look like.
In his discussion of how the cities have changed into complex, bottom up systems, Brewin says this (pg 63),
There are still those who cry for revolution, for a revival that will change things in a snap, make everything OK as thousands flock to church... But the days for revolution are over. The cry for revival is too often a cry for abdication: you do it all, God. Well God has done God's bit, it is the systems that now need to change. This is the faith we have signed up for: the Church as the body of Christ where we have real parts to play, real responsibilities. We must not act rashly--diving in to this or that. We must do as God did. Stop. Wait. Grieve. Strip away power, might, pretence at knowledge, riches... and be born again. As Einstein famously said, "The same consciousness that created a problem can not solve it."
So will we be the ones to solve the problem? My ego wants me to say yes but deep down I know better. What is the impact of the things like Vaux that have come out of the period of waiting and grieving? Brewin offers an interesting comparison. Punk music. As he says (pg 71), punk was never going to be the future of music but what it did was the give permission to those who did create the future of music. He points out the unsustainable energy needed to create alternative worship (something that I can relate to with the worship.freehouse) but does point out that even if like the Sex Pistols and it does implode and burn out, it has (along with other expressions of the emerging church in the west) clear the way for other things to come along and pick up the torch.
For whatever the future will look like, the book does call us back to the present. For many of us that is in the city. (pg 106).
We must learn to penetrate our communities and penetrate our workplaces. We must learn to penetrate our cities and find God in them, for the cities are our true destiny. They are where it will not be God alone, but god and us and him and her and white and black and rich and poor and illiterate and abused and day and straight and Protestant and Catholic and the whole feast of life. And only in the city can we get that message. It is not an easy message to tune into with so much white noise and hatred and difficulty and screwed up and transport and mugging and division...But with practice, with a commitment to engaging positively with the city and looking to catch it doing good rather than always on the lookout to knock it down, we can begin to see glimpses of why God is committed to the city as our future: because the redeemed city is the final expression of humanity and divinity in co-operation. It is the conjunction of God's creation with our creativity, where we are building something together.
How do we interact in the city? There are a couple of ways we can interact with others around us. Perhaps the most popular is in a market economy. Just a grocer sells you ice cream and vegetables, churches offer you up religious services and goods for a price (tithe). Before one mocks that idea, I worked on a staff where we articulated it in those terms and so do many other churches across the western world. As Brewin points out, the most pernicious part of the market exchange is that every person needs to justify their existence and contribution to the market economy or in the lingo of the church, be aligned around the purpose/vision/mission... There is another way and that is the idea of the gift. His tie of worship to a gift was breath of fresh air for me. For too long the church growth movement has seen worship as a commodity which was to be traded for attendance and tithe. I remember talking to one worship leader who unabashedly would boast that if you gave people the worship style they wanted, the more money they would give. He was probably right in his analysis of the "transaction" but as Kester reminds us, there is another use for worship other then generating revenue and that is the metaphor and idea of the "gift".
Looking back at to the reasons why a number of us started Vaux in the first place, it was because the churches we were part of gave no opportunity for us to give. Sitting a huge church full to the brim with about 600 people, mostly in their early twenties, many of them working as actors, writers, directors, graphic artists, and musicians, it seemed extraordinary that unless they were able to preach or play the guitar, their gifts were not welcome. There was no space within the normal weekly services for any of these other talents, yet it was these talents that were talents that were put to use in the marketplace week in, week out. Perhaps it was not less surprising that people were coming to church with an attitude of getting rather than giving, because there was actually no room in the highly structured, highly dictatorial services fortheir gifts to be given.
Speaking more on the idea of gifts and worship, Brewin captures what I think is a lost truth in the emerging church and our existence in a market driven church economy.
"Alternative worship" is not multimedia worship. It is about allowing people to use their gifts so that they can worship with integrity. It would be folly to pretend that by installing PA systems, video projectors and screens, and shipping in tea-lights by the tonne every church would suddenly be "doing alternative worship". Buying a labyrinth or some ambient music and video loops doesn't get you any closer to the original spirit of the movement, because what Vaux would call "alternative worship" cannot be bought into; it is not about commodity but gift, and gifts must come from those taking part, not be bussed in from outside.
In the Emergent Church, acts of worship will spring from the economy of gift. They will not be products that can be bought or sold, or commodities to be consumed in exchange for some devotion. However, we must not restrict our thoughts on gift to services. Thinking more widely about cities, they are massively dominated by market exchange - economic beats driven by capital and profit in ways that small villages a not. The Church would be foolish to try to play the city at this game and boost its "market share", "reposition itself itself in the market" or "rebrand" its message with modern advertising and marketing methods, for the essence of what we have cannot be bought or sold. It is not to be consumed and is not a lifestyle choice. Its truth will not be fully told by glamorous girls with smiley pearly teeth, and eight out of ten people who express a preference will not express its depth and pain with richness or sorrow. In the face of the saturating and all encompassing urban market, which Hyde rightly associates with empty death that leads nowhere, the church must stand as a beacon of generosity, as a hub for gift exchange and all the relational enrichment that brings.
Of course he does cover the topic of dirt which gained notoriety after Steve Collins wrote about it in a 2002 column in Ship of Fools. I never found that much offense in the service (although back in 2002 when I first posted about it many did find a lot of offense with it). While the chapter was something to reflect on it, it does tie back into all of the other themes and ideas of the book and that is that the church finds itself in a different world and place than it has been for 2000 years and that is a missional movement that is often underground and back in amongst the city. Life is not as black and white as it once was (or perhaps as some in the church saw it then) and the nuances to live in the city are many at times contradictory.
I think I have read the book probably 20 times and I will soon retire the book as soon as Signs of Emergence comes out in North America for no other reason to give it's battered binding a must needed break. If I had a list of the ten most important books for the emerging church and for the church in general, I think this one would definitely be on it. You can pre-order your copy from Amazon.com now, you will be glad you did.
I have blogged about the efforts of Joe Manafo to film a documentary on the emerging church in Canada and I have been following his blog and on YouTube as he travels across Canada chatting with friends of mine and emerging church leaders about what God is doing in their contexts. Today I drove out to Living Waters Camp where Joe was speaking to hang out a bit with Joe and be filmed for the documentry.
I thought a drive might be good for the entire family so Wendy and Mark came along and we were able to catch up with an old friend from college. Joe also caught Wendy off guard and talked her into appearing on film. It was a little too much for Mark to see his mom and dad on film so he managed to get into the video.
One of the best questions he asked me was what are we preparing people for in the future? It's a good question and a couple of years ago I would have given him a different answer but I don't have a really rosy look at the future for the west.
I agree that even more than democracy, the western world is fueled by one central idea and that is cheap natural gas and oil. It allows us to heat our cities as well as transport goods all over the world for almost nothing (goods made cheaply in China are still cheap when they get here, do the math). With us running shorter and shorter on those resources (see here, here and here), it is foolish to think that there will not be some sort of economic transition and pain as we adjust or retool for the future on a massive scale. Also, I have friends who I went to school with who are just wrapping up their second marriages and are now looking for number three. Broken familes leave an impact that will continue to grow each subsequent decade for good or bad. Finally I think the church has been a product of the western world to a degree as a opposed to a Resident Alien in the western world. That is going to take some more figuring out and also practice until we get it right.
In end, as long as I looked cooler on film then Scott Williams, I will be pleased.
Oligarchy in the church: Sociologists have discovered that in virtually all forms of social organizations, from friendship groups to nations, a small self-perpetuating group grabs most of the power. This tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few persons is called the law of oligarchy. Through His various words and actions that we read in the Bible, Jesus condemns oligarchy in social, economic, political and religious spheres of life.
The electability of John Edwards :: A top handicapper told me recently that he expects Hillary to perform in a general election as ‘Generic Democrat Minus Five Points.’ Meaning that she can win — but only in another wave election like we saw in the 2006 election, where resentment against Bush and the GOP gives Dems a 6 to 8 point head start. Barack Obama may have a similar structural disadvantage. (Though given his ability to mobilize untraditional voters — millennials and gen xers in particular — he might be able to make up for it. He remains as ever a wild card.) If Democrats are looking for a safer bet to take back the Oval office, Edwards the silver tongued Southern senator looks like a winner from this poll data… especially if he’s fortunate to run against another flip flopper from Massachusetts.
"People don't change that much": Bishop Willimon is talking about Marcus Buckingham's book but there are are incredible implications to his statement about discipleship in addition to just leadership.
So what does Ann Coulter actually have against John Edwards? :: But really. What is it with Coulter and Edwards… this virulent Barbie hates Ken thing? My best guess is that Edwards makes an easy proxy target. Rabid rightwingers can no longer safely call Hillary the B word, much less call Obama the N word (although that hasn’t stopped Rush from calling him a Negro), but you can still get away with calling Edwards a “faggot.” And apologize for it by voicing your deathwishes for him on Good Morning America.
Corruption in the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS :: In his opening essay, Bono writes that in just nine months, (Product) Red has raised around $25 million for its beneficiary, the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. What he doesn’t mention is that throughout its brief existence, the Global Fund—a Sachs brainchild—has been wracked by corruption scandals. Last week, the news in Uganda was dominated by the arrests of four onetime government officials, including the powerful (and immensely wealthy) former health minister, on charges of skimming huge sums off the millions in Global Fund grants Uganda has received. And, lest we think corruption is purely an African problem, an internal audit revealed earlier this year that the British executive director of the fund, Sir Richard Feachem, was using his expense account to rent limousines and to throw expensive dinner parties. New luxury, indeed. On a recent return visit to Uganda, where I’d lived for two years, one of the first changes I noticed was that a multistory residential building had been erected across the dirt road from the little pub I frequented. My friends told me the owner of the property worked for the health ministry. They’d nicknamed the place the “Global Fund Apartments.” We all laughed at the joke: Ugandans know that there are worse sins in this world than corruption. They’ve learned, through rough experience, to see Africa for what it is: a continent of people, not vessels for our pity. Their Africa is a vibrant, funny, human place. I wish we could separate it from this business of being inspi(red). :: Also, here is another link on Bono's hypocrisy over taxes :: Before you flame me, we give Bono a lot of link love over the years but the last link really bothered me.
I have been reading Rebecca Blood's excellent collection of Summer Reading Lists and after putting in a big order to Amazon.ca, I decided to create my own. In no particular order...
No Future Without Forgiveness by Archbishop Desmond Tutu :: I picked this up this spring and read it again and I forgot what an amazing book this is and a story of living out one's faith in the most troubling of situations.
Soul Graffiti by Mark Scandrette :: One of the best books I have read this year and it wrestles with the question of how to actually live out the teaching of Jesus in a post-Christian world.
Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect by Joe Myers: Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can’t be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge.
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt :: I thought the book had some excellent chapters as well as some weaker ones (all multi-authored books suffer from this) but as a whole, it was worth reading, even for us non-Americans who get a glimpse of how the American emerging church sees itself.
The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon :: The book is about how society will deal with increasing costs to get oil out of ground and the challenges and opportunities that will bring but it could as well be read in light of any context going through any great change. (My review can be found here)
The Jesus Way by Eugene Peterson :: A way of sacrifice. A way of failure. A way on the margins. A way of holiness. All of these ways prepared the "way of the Lord" that became incarnate and complete in Jesus. But somewhere along the line, Peterson reminds us that we have lost the "way".
Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson :: There has been a lot of books out there criticizing contemporary media for much of societies ills but Johnson makes the contrarian argument quite convincing. Johnson shatters the conventional wisdom about pop culture as pabulum, showing how video games, television shows and movies have become increasingly complex. Furthermore, he says, consumers are drawn specifically to those products that require the most mental engagement.
How (Not) to Speak of God by Pete Rollins :: Not the easiest book to read but a powerful theological and philosophical treatise on the emerging church.
Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin :: It used to be called The Complex Christ but a new continent and publisher have given it a new identity as Signs of Emergence. One of the best books on the emerging church and now new to North America. You can read my review of the book here.
Suggestions or feedback? Leave them in the comments below.
A Brief History of Economic Time :: The underlying expectation -- that the present is supposed to be better than the past -- is a new phenomenon in history. No 18th-century politician would have asked "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because it never would have occurred to anyone that they ought to be better off than they were four years ago.
Great Lakes under siege :: A recent report by Environment Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency paints a mixed picture of the lakes, acknowledging partial success in cleaning up over the last 30 years but also revealing new problems - some of which that likely can't be fixed. It will be almost impossible to eradicate the 300 non-native species that have invaded the Great Lakes basin, and new chemicals are being identified in the waters all the time, experts say. "Sometimes I'm a little bit concerned that the Great Lakes have slid to the back of environmental concerns," McGuinty said in an interview earlier this week. "It's really important that we keep the Great Lakes water quality on the national agenda." McGuinty called on Ottawa to spearhead a meeting of Canadian and American federal, provincial and state officials, which he said would go a long way toward better protecting a resource that's being taken for granted. "What I'd love the federal government to do is take on the whole idea of a national clean water summit," he said. "It is a tremendous resource, it is something that people around the world recognize as being a kind of crown jewel of the North American ecosystem and we have to continue to work together to protect it." Canada has been lagging behind its American counterparts in cleaning up the Great Lakes and it's time the federal government stepped up its commitments, said Aaron Freeman, policy director for Environmental Defence.
I got an e-mail angrily stating that people like me need to stop talking about the emerging church and start talking about "faith". I don't know if this is what he had in mind but here we go.
Below is a rather wordy article for my denomination's magazine to help get people thinking outside the box in how we see the local church. Not sure if it worked but people have been saying nice things about it to my face at least :-)
For Lent this year, I decided to give up politics. In the past I had given up caffeine, chocolate, television, and even NHL hockey playoffs but this year I decided to step back from following politics which is something I spend too much time thinking and reading about. Of course this meant trying to ignore the Quebec election of which I had some success in doing. On Monday, March 27th, I was agonizing over the final edits of this article, which was supposed to be about the future of the church. I decided to take a brief television break and was confronted with some really boring choices. While surfing channels, I found myself watching CTV Newsnet and seeing what the talking heads were saying about the Quebec election. Before I caught myself, I heard the panel chortling to themselves over the comment, "Who could have predicted that this result was going to happen to Jean Charest?" I remember the exact same comment being said during former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow's final election when he was handed a minority. A couple of hours before that I remember a well known political commentator leading off his networks coverage with, “Is there anything that will stand between the NDP and another strong majority? No there isn’t”. Well the prognosticators were wrong that evening as well.
The phrase made me think about a book I had read a couple of years ago by Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon called The Ingenuity Gap. One of the books recurring themes is that we live in a world with a tremendous amount of variables which are overwhelming and make it very difficult to predict the outcome of our decisions. The book goes to show how complex our inter-connected world is and how poorly we understand how it works despite our proclamations to the opposite. From the food chain in the English Channel, to water planning in Las Vegas, to international markets during the Asian currency crisis; time and time again experts missed something that invalidated all of calculations for the future. Not only is it hard to know all of the variables that will influence our future, we are constantly hit by fads that while seem important, really aren't (like election news stories over which tie color resonates best with voters)
As I returned to edit my article for Mosaic, I realized that I was probably making the exact same mistake. There are too many variables, too many things that can change. If the all knowing pollsters and Mike Duffy can't forecast a 40 day election, how do we talk about the future of the church farther than that? All of the variables of culture plus the complexities of denomination and local church dynamics make it hard to predict any future.
So what can we talk about? Instead of talking about the future, it may be helpful to discuss the the factors that are happening now that will impact the future. To often organizations live in the past as it is easier to understand and don't have the needed conversations on what is happening the present that will shape their future.
Post-Christian Canada and the West
In a couple of books I have read in the last year, they have referenced some recent studies that point out by 2040, under 5% of people in England may be Christian (only 9.4% are attending church now) According to church statistics, the four main UK denominations, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic, the Methodist, and United Reformed Churches, are all suffering from a long-term decline in attendance figures. The good thing is that they realize this and are trying new ideas to reverse the decline. The Anglican and Methodist Churches have started their Fresh Expressions initiative which encourages new expressions of church like alternative worship, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury plans to be broadcasting his sermons on YouTube in an acknowledgment that more and more Anglicans just aren't in church on Sundays. While some of the initiatives talked about as other Fresh Initiatives seemed a little off the mark, it is encouraging that the Church of England the Methodist Church in England are acknowledging that something has to change.
In Australia, things aren't that much more encouraging but in a recent book called The Forgotten Ways, missiologist Alan Hirsch sees it this way
A combination of recent research in Australia indicates that about 10-15 percent of that population is attracted to what we call the contemporary church growth model. In other words, this model has significant "market appeal" to about 12 percent of our population. The more successful forms of this model tend to be large, highly professionalized, and overwhelmingly middle class, and express themselves culturally using contemporary, "seeker friendly" language and middle-of-the-road music forms. They structure themselves around "family ministry" and therefore offer multi-generational services. Demographically speaking, they tend to cater largely to what might be called the "family-values-segment"--good, solid, well-educated citizens who don't abuse their kids, who pay their taxes, and who live largely, what can be called a suburban lifestyle.
Not only is this type of church largely made up of Christian people who fit this profile, the research indicates that these churches can also be very effective in reaching non-Christian people fitting the same demographic description--the people within their cultural reach. That is, the church does not have to cross any significant cultural barriers in order to communicate the gospel to that cultural context. (pg 35)
In the United States, the number attracted to the idea of church may be as high as 35%. Canadian polls suggest that about 20 - 30% of Canadians may share values that would be open to going to church (approximately 20% of people say they attending church regularly but that number is often inflated by people exaggerating how often they attend church). That number is a both a blessing and a curse. It shows that at least about six to seven million Canadians are open to the values articulated by the church which do provide a large pool of Canadians for the church to draw from but even that is difficult as pollster George Barna sees the family values segment of the population to fall by half in approximately fifteen years.
While nothing is wrong with those within that segment, most of us as Free Methodists would be there and by in large, they are not that offensive of a people group. Six million Canadians is nothing to sneeze at and does provide a significant opportunity for the church but that is only part of the story.
Of course what is to make of the people outside of that family values segment? Depending on how one looks at the numbers, anywhere from 65% to 85% of Canadians are removed by various degrees from that category and from those values. They make up the vast bulk of Canadians that have to overcome some obstacles to come to our churches as the church is not even on their radar. According to what Alan Hirsch writes in The Forgotten Ways, in addition to not being on the radar for most people, a large percentage are at some level alienated by the church. From bad experiences, to strong preconceived ideas about Christianity or from a cultural context that is hostile to Christianity, it would be as hard for them to be a part of a church as it would be many Free Methodists to join a non-Christian religion. Doing “church” better; PowerPoint, better music, wittier or more theologically astute sermons probably won’t make any impact on those that are outside the church because they are unlikely to bother entering the doors in the first place.
The other factor in society is that there has been a breakdown in the mass markets. Where at one point a church used to pick a neighborhood and then put down it's roots and if church was "done right", it had a good chance to reach their area for Christ. Depending on the church, property values actually rose if you were closer to a church. A middle class neighborhood would have middle class people in it with middle class values. Today that is changing where traditional people groups have segmented and segmented again. The mass market is shrinking and those neighborhoods are made up of a variety of sub-groups.
What does that mean for the future of the church?
While it is popular to lament the loss of the Christian fabric in Canadian culture and condemn those that don't share our values, that probably won't do anything to reverse the change. Complaining that people don't go to church anymore won't change anything.
When Anglican Bishop nd missionary, Leslie Newbiggin came back to England at the age of 65 after spending most of his career in India, this is what he found.
Ministry in England, he discovered, "is much harder than anything I met in India. There is a cold contempt for the Gospel which is harder to face than opposition. . . . England is a pagan society and the development of a truly missionary encounter with this very tough form of paganism is the greatest intellectual and practical task facing the Church" (Unfinished Agenda).
It is hard, Newbigin knew, for a Hindu or a Muslim to come to worship Christ. For an Englishman, it would seem, it had become even harder.
Whats life for the church going to be like in a post-Christian Canada. A world in which we are seen more and more irrelevant? There isn't a definite roadmap or program to follow and I think the mass segmentation will force the church for the first time in a long time to chart their own paths as we enter into new territory. That being said, there are some that have been at this for a little longer and have adjusted to their own contexts.
The Freeway in downtown Hamilton is both a church community and coffee shop serving both those looking for coffee and a place to connect online as well as the urban poor.
Three Nails in Pittsburgh is an Episcopal church plant that has embedded itself into the community by meeting a need that I never would have thought of and that is making really good New York City style hot dogs. They helped open a restaurant that used to be called Hot Dogma but was sued over the name so now they are called Franktuary. Their motto in case you are wondering is And the meat shall inherit the earth.
Harambee in Pasadena, California Back in 1982, Navarro Avenue in Pasadena, California had the highest daytime crime rate in Southern California. Believing that the only way they could make a difference was to move into the neighborhood, Dr. John Perkins started a ministry on "blood corner" (named because of the drive by shootings). Twenty five years later it had largely changed the neighborhood and curbed the violence. Not only that but it has prepared two generations of church leaders as well on a campus that is essentially several small houses with a common backyard. It doesn't take much to change the world.
The same can be said about emerging congregations and church plants in the Free Methodist Church. Ecclesiax and ThirdSpace reach artists and creative types in different ways because their local contexts are different.
Some Anglican churches in London, England empowered and nurtured new faith communities who met in their own buildings. Most often with no staff or clergy, these communities formed what is now called alternative worship and is engaging a portion of England's population that would never enter into a traditional worship context. At the same time they give new life to traditional congregations.
Some churches in urban areas saw what a place called Paragraph NY did, which is create a place that is essentially a gym but instead is a place for writers and creative types to work. They looked at a lot of unused space, got a good coffee maker, and wireless Internet and opened up the doors... and people came in.
At the end of the day, the church is going to have to learn to reconnect with their community as opposed to rely on the community to come to them. Whether or not churches can do that will largely determine how long of a future they have.
The Future of Theological Education
I remember being a conference years ago when the comparison was made between the average income of baby boomers measured against things like education, mortgage, and transportation. Then they compared my generation. Everything was more expensive but especially education and at that moment I realized that the Freedom 55 commercials were not targeted at me. The presenter put it into what it meant for the church. To go to seminaries like Wheaton or Fuller, it meant that you either had to be older and saved up some money, come from a wealthy family, or willing to take on a large amount of student loan debt. This has affected even smaller Bible Colleges who are faced with an aging donor base and less contributions which has meant higher tuitions.
The costs associated with education keep many interested learners at arms length. A building costs money; faculty need to be paid and they expect certain privileges associated with their position. Beyond that, the physical space of education limits the number of students who can participate (those who can get to the location, those who can fit into the facilities). After a while the school's priorities shift toward the necessities of taking care of the building and faculty, and these begin to displace the original educational goals.
This starts to impact the wider church in a couple of ways as it also influences students. As I heard one seminary faculty member say it, whether the student or his family is footing the expensive cost of seminary education, it makes students less inclined or less able to enter the mission field or enter into a ministry context that does not pay a certain amount of money or safety.
The long term consequences of that happening to more church leaders is easy to see. Only wealthy churches have access to quality theological thinkers and the church may have to withdraw from areas that can not afford a certain level of compensation.
There has been others who have seen this happening and are working to create an alternative future. City Seminary of New York is a collaborative project of churches across New York City who brings in theologians and speakers to help church leaders in their local contexts. Fees are as low as $10 (to cover meals). The Alternative Seminary in Philadelphia is developing training materials and offering classes for those that can not afford it. Closer to home, in Kingston there is the Invisible College which tackles big issues from a Christian worldview. Topics like globalization and how technology impacts our lives have been past topics. Resonate has hosted several local discussions with theologians and thinkers over the last three years in Toronto and Hamilton all for free.
While seminaries and many local churches have been slower to adopt this model in favor of selling content, more and more universities are giving away their lectures, course work, and even tests for free over the Internet. M.I.T.'s OpenCourseWare allows you to tap into M.I.T.'s vast teaching resources as a teacher or self-learner for free. It doesn't grant you a degree or credits but it does share the wisdom. TED, a world leading conference of big thinkers has recently used Google Video to make their entire conference available for free online. While I questioned the Archbishop of Canterbury's use of YouTube when the idea was floated, almost 8000 people have watched his latest video in three weeks, far more than what would have heard him speaking in a church and that number will keep climbing.
While the Free Methodist Church in Canada's Foundational Courses and the Archbishop of Canterbury's efforts come from a denomination, many of the other alternative forms of theological education are coming from the grassroots of the church. Motivated local church leaders striving to make a difference in their communities. Whether that will be online or offline in churches and third spaces, in partnership with existing educational institutions or creating new ones, how it shapes up and we decide to view new forms of education will go a long way in shaping how we see church.
Discipleship
This is related to the discussion on theological education but we can't ignore the issue of discipleship or lack of it in local churches.
In his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Ron Sider points out that evangelicals do a rather poor job of living out what we preach. In fact in some areas that evangelicals profess to care about, we tend to live worse then those we profess to want to "save". Robert Webber writes on this topic in his book, Ancient Future Evangelism where he suggests that discipleship is a forgotten practice in many churches, a theme which is echoed in Dallas Willard's book which is aptly named, The Great Omission. Duke University's, Stanley Hauerwas suggests that we have confused North American values with Christianity and reduced being a Christian to being a good neighbor and good American [or Canadian]. Eugene Peterson simply asks that how can we know so much and live so badly. Both Eugene Peterson and Dallas Willard talk about the church services.
Eugene Peterson says this,
The operating biblical metaphor regarding worship is sacrifice. We bring ourselves to the altar and let God do to us what God will. We bring ourselves to the eucharistic table, entering into that grand fourfold shape of the liturgy that shapes us: taking, blessing, breaking, giving—the life of Jesus taken and blessed, broken and distributed; and that eucharistic life now shapes our lives as we give ourselves, Christ in us, to be taken, blessed, broken and distributed in lives of witness and service, justice and healing.
But this is not the American way. The major American innovation in the congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting and requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable. It didn't take long for some of our colleagues to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our churches is to identify what they want and offer it to them. Satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel into consumer terms—entertainment, satisfaction, excitement and adventure, problem-solving, whatever. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches?
Dallas Willard says something similar but in just three sentences,
We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of 'regular church services,' of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple.
Even if we get every other aspect of church right and people do engage with us again. What do they get when they get here. An entire "discipleship industry" has formed within the church trying to sell me an answer to that question and there are a lot of different opinions.
As technology and culture change, it changes the world in which we learn in. What would have been considered deviant behaviour a generation ago isn't questioned today as being abnormal. I remember reading a book on how young Christians needed to act and it concentrated on issues like how long should your hair be and if sideburns are okay. It was as funny to read then as it is today but it does go a long ways in determining what we saw were important things back then. Today, things have changed. A friend showed me his high school son's instant messenger buddy list. Every single one of them was a sexual reference. While we were talking about that, a song came over by an underage artist talking about sex acts with her boyfriend. What does the church look like in a culture that is changing, materialistic, confused, and intolerant of how it sees the church being intolerant? While the much of the discussion centers on the forms we use for discipling, statements from many theologians suggest that we may have to rethink what a Christian is in today's world.
If there is good news in all of this, it is that many Free Methodists are having these kinds of discussions all over the place, both formally (like at last years Ecclesiology Study Commission) and informally. Many of those voices will go into papers and ideas to presented at the next General Conference and of course are being discussed in local churches. As I told a colleague not that long ago, some of us are too young to have experienced the "good old days" of the church but this is the time that God wanted us to be here for and there is something exciting about that.
Some things that could have been full posts but I haven't had time to write about them...
Brady Quinn will not be the second coming of Rick Mirer. Rick Mirer ran Lou Holtz's option and run based offence while Brady just spent two years running the New England Patriots offence and being coached by the guy that seemed to do okay with another Brady...
A friend of mine insists that Americans have problems have trouble following the puck in NHL games. Maybe Fox was right with their glowing pucks.
Is there a worst stadium in professional sports than Tropicana Field? Actually ESPN has researched this and no it isn't. My favorite baseball stadium is Angels stadium in Anaheim. Wrigley and Fenway are great but I prefer baseball in Southern California.
It's time to fire J.P. Ricciardi. Nine straight losses and after losing two DH's and two starting pitchers, he added Frank Thomas. I never knew that Frank could pitch. With the B.J. Ryan fiasco, now J.P. is lying to the fans.
I am trying a Patch Perfect type product on our yard. Mulch, seed, and fertilizer. I'll let you know how it works compared to regular yard seed.
I think that the Democrats will nominate Hillary Clinton in 2008, thus paving the way for President Guiliani.
I am not sure why the NHL won't sell advertising on uniforms? I am not saying we need to see the Edmonton ESSO Oilers or anything but what's wrong with some advertising patches?
Is the Wall Street Journal worth less or more with Rupert Murdoch owning it. I say it is worth quite a bit less. FOX News is a parody of a news network and what is scary is that most people who watch it don't realize it.
I think that people that need a Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson to help them understand the issues of the day, should not be allowed to vote.
I wonder how much of what Ann Coulter says, she actually believes?
I wonder how much of what Michael Moore says, he actually believes?
I don't think evolution, homosexuality or a non-literal reading of much of the Bible (apart from the Gospels) matter much to the Christian faith.
I don't think most Republican politicians care as much about abortion or homosexual rights as they say but rather use the issues to attack Democrats and rile up the base.
I don't think most Democratic politicians care as much about abortion or homosexual rights as they say but rather use the issues to attack Republicans and rile up the base.
I don't think that D.A. Carson and John MacAuther care so much about the emerging church other than their is money to made from writing books attacking it.
Queen's Logic is the worst movie ever. Worse than Batman and Robin. No plot, no character development, no nothing. It just happened and took two hours of my life that I will never get back.
Red Dawn is a vastly underrated movie and the world needs more movies by Patrick Swayze. I think that Red Dawn may have prevented a Soviet attack on North American because they knew we were now trained to fight tanks with bows and arrows successfully.
Speaking of Soviets, Vladislav Tretiak is one of my favorite hockey players of all time.
I collect John Wesley trading cards put out by tobacco companies. This is only funny if you are Free Methodist.
I think the consolidation of hockey equipment manufacturers is bad for the game of hockey and eventually the rising cost of the game will kill it.
I had a choice of having Mark play soccer or baseball this year and I practically pleaded with him to play baseball because the idea of watching him play soccer for the next decade depressed me while the idea of watching baseball sounded like fun. Luckily he chose baseball.
I have a book of Thomas Merton's photography and while this may alienate many of you, I don't think he had a lot of talent as a photographer.
We had gun shots periodically going off all night on our street. Sounded like .22 caliber shots.
The prostitutes that used to work 33rd Street and Avenue C and D the last two years seem to have moved on. Our neighborhood patrol seemed to have worked.
I don't understand Chicago Cubs fans. There is another home team to cheer for and at least it is good once in a while. I am a Saskatchewan Roughrider team and while it stinks and is bad for decades at a time, at least we aren't cursed as well.
I hid Maggi's tennis ball and she knocked over a bunch of stuff trying to get to it. That is nothing compared to a co-worker whose dog ate a sofa to get to her tennis ball.
When I started work, there was a couple of space heaters in my office as a guy who likes it chilly, the idea of working in a cool office all winter seemed nice. For some reason (and we all have a theory) My office has been an oven all winter with the only air being air in from the outside coming through a small opening in the security glass (which has caused ear aches all winter). Now my office is so hot I have asked Wendy to price out those vats of ice that football players cool off in during training camp. I am told that by Saskatchewan law, our boilers need to keep running until May 15th. The good thing for the guys is that their rooms and spaces are cooler and it is mostly just some of the office areas are hot.
I just read An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. It is a good book (which includes a number of chapters written by friends) but awfully American. Aretherenovoices outside of the United States that has anything of value to say to the American church?
Am reading An Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. He has a number of interesting things to say about the extreme partisanship that has made politics into bloodsport but also the underpinnings of the religious right but also it's counterpart on the left as well. If I was an American, I would still support John Edwards but I would not be upset with Obama winning the nomination. At the same time I am re-reading George Stephanopoulos' excellent book, All Too Human which is a depressing look at the Clinton White House, particularily how Clinton played friends off each other for personal gain. I am not sure I ever want to be in a position in life when I toy with my friends for my own benefit.
I have a pile of maple logs neatly stacked in my yard drying out waiting to be cut and split. The City of Saskatoon has gotten a couple of complaints about them as people are worried they are elm which is banned in the city. What kind of people wander a neighborhood on the lookout for elm? (obviously not those who know much about trees) Yesterday after explaining to the city workers that they had already checked the trees, they asked if I would mind a sign from the city that basically said, "This is maple and there is no need to panic". I said I would accept that wording as well as a picture of Mr. T saying "I pity the fool that doesn't know the difference between maple and elm!" I think we all know which sign I am hoping for. I did offer to cover the maple with a tarp to help it's drying out and to stop making people worry but according to the workers, then it looks like we are hiding elm and that would probably generate more calls.
If you are an American, you are probably missing Mantracker. Basically the show is two guys on foot with a sizable lead and only they know where the finish line is. They are tracked by two trackers on foot who have to catch them before they cross the finish line about two days later. Last night two military soldiers beat the guys on horse despite Mantracker being within about 500 metres for the last couple of hours by outmaneuvering the horses and out thinking Mantracker. Generally what happens is about day two, the prey snaps and loses sense of reality and is easily caught. Once you watch it once, you get hooked. Hope that a network picks this show up because it is pretty good.
I just got word that theologian, author, and friend of the emerging church, Robert Webber has died after a long battle with cancer. Over the years I enjoyed our e-mails back and forth as well as his many, many books. Like many, many people I will miss his voice, wisdom, and love for the church.
Please keep Joanne and the family in your prayers.
Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world; in the name of God the Father Almighty who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you; in the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you. May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God. Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Bob. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.
Rick Bennett on Dobson and global warming :: It has nothing to do with science, truth or theology. This crowd sees that a refocus on a different agenda will greatly affect their own bottom line. They will no longer be able to send out a scary letter about Liberal Agendas and how the family and nation are being destroyed knowing the dollars will fly in. They know that Evangelicals concerned with the environment and war are bad for business.
Sings of Emergence is now out in Canada and the United States. I reviewed the U.K. version of the book on my blog but with the American release of the book, I thought it was worth a repost. I also submitted a review into