Monday, July 30, 2007

Fresh Expressions of disagreement


Stumbled across an interesting 'debate' this morning, via things like this:


I think the basic idea is to question some of the buzz-words in what's called the emerging church movement (which has some overlap with what the CofE/Methodists call Fresh Expressions), and to put up a few warning signs. It's easy to use words and jargon phrases without really thinking them through, and to end up falling into a big hole a result. I must confess, I've been talking with people recently about letting 'church' emerge from the activity of mission, rather than having a pre-set form. However, is saying 'we want to be open to new ways of being the church' is also another way of saying 'we don't know how it's supposed to work?' It could be, if we're not careful. Just seeing this poster makes me think that I need to do a bit more thinking on church and mission before going round talking like I'm some kind of expert.


Here's another one, also quite potent, especially given what's in the picture.
You can find the whole set of 20 here, including one involving U2 that was a bit too close for comfort!! If you've read some stuff on the emerging church, they'll make sense, if not, several of them will be quite bewildering.....
They don't tell the whole truth, but I like the discussion they're trying to kick off. If you want to follow the discussion, some of it is happening at tallskinnykiwi, one of the most popular emerging church blogs.

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