Moving Church Past Contracts

Many of you have likely read Seth Godin’s most recent manifesto, “Stop Stealing Dreams” where he tackles the question of education in his typical blog-thought style. The whole 33,000 words are free for download if you want to give it a read. In section 26, Godin talks about the contract of adhesion. Here’s how he [...]

Aids, homosexuality…confronting the terminal illness of judgement

Last night, working in the emergency department we had a woman maybe in her seventy’s come in with her forty year old son. To look at him you would never guess he was forty. He looked older than his mother, he was thin, gaunt and literally wasting away. He didn’t have to say a word, you [...]

Evangelical 2.0: The Deception of Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 Network

I’ve written quite a bit about churches like Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill and the concerns I have about a lack of accountability, given that they’re not part of a denomination or other larger body of oversight. Churches led my ministers like Driscoll and John Piper seem to be independent, yet pressing a surprisingly consistent agenda [...]

Kickstarting the Emergent Conversation

For a long time, the emergent conversation has been labeled and criticized (to some degree, rightly) as a mostly white male phenomenon. Thankfully, that is not the reality on the ground any longer. Over the years, the conversation has become much more diverse — racially, ethnically, socio-politically, as well as theologically. But that story hasn’t [...]

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God is …a church where beauty is cherished. Where people are given the space to express their creative nature and make beautiful things. A space where candles come in all different kinds of colors, containers and arrangements. Where banners are made to fit a space and a people. Where lanterns light up [...]

I am topsoil + to topsoil I shall return*

There is something comforting to me in the idea that I am part of the earth and will always be part of the earth. Maybe it’s rooted in my rural upbringing, where I was familiar with the dirt, and played in it, and got my hands dirty often. There was a time in my adult [...]

Strange Christianity Made in America: Part I by Randy Woodley

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What has been particularly harmful about American Christianity has not necessarily been the beliefs professed by American Christians but rather the worldview that makes professions of belief more real than living them out. Within this schism of reality exists classic American dualism. With just a reference to our nation’s fondness for war, our crime statistics, [...]

Conversation As a Path to Transformation

Chris Smith

We’re getting ready to celebrate in April our 8-year anniversary of meeting as the “Emerging Church Discussion Group” (a.k.a. the Charlotte Emergent cohort). The group has changed a lot over the years, but one thing remains the same: There is still a need for a safe(r) space for theological conversation, because most churches do not [...]

the boy who broke the law and lost his father…

  if there is anything revolutionary within christianity, it is everything that lies outside of it. meaning, that christianity at its best must be receptive to the ‘trauma of the secular’, rather than resist it (as it has historically). the anarchic kernel within christianity resides not in the creeds, not even in the bible itself, [...]

What is an Evangelical?

The “E Word” in Christianity is a funny thing. In one respect, Evangelicals are self-identified, and therefore, self-defined. On the other, popular culture (particularly media) lays its own meaning on what it means to be Evangelical. In the latter context, the word inevitably translates to “Conservative Christian.” But I think this definition isn’t fair. What’s [...]