A Flat Church in Action

If I had the chance to do my dissertation research today, instead of 2005, there are a few other churches I’d use in the study. One of them would surely be Common Table in Washington, D.C., where Mike Stavlund and Co. are doing what they can to embody the flat church that I hope for in my latest book. Here’s a something Mike wrote recently for the Emergent Village Blog:

Listening to a recent ‘On Being’ podcast with the venerable and feisty Walter Brueggemann, I was struck by what seems at first to be rank overstatement.  His contention is that the ancient Hebrew ‘prophetic/poetic messengers’ serve to critique everything:  all political, social, and religious systems. In Brueggemann’s opinion, the worst thing we can do with these Biblical messages is to organize them, domesticate them, and to “create another ‘ism’”.

Surely, part of the reason emergence churches like Common Table don’t get more organized is because we lack that kind of drive and motivation.   We might get around to establishing a denomination, if we had the time to do it.  We might try to create some kind of legacy, it it wasn’t such a burdensome project.  No, we’re too busy with Twitter, Facebook, fixing our hair, and with finding the perfect hipster glasses to get much done.

via A Seat at The Table: Keep it Wild | Emergent Village.