Registration Deadline for emergingumc: a gathering

The hard deadline is August 20.

Registrations are low at this point-- so if you're planning to be part of the event
register today. (Click the registration tab on the web page to register online, download a .pdf of the registration form, or for contact information to register by phone if the online methods don't work for you).

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Looking for Linux Developers... Now...

Companions,

A strange request, maybe-- but I really need to talk with a Linux Developer as soon as possible-- someone who would have the clearances to post packages and the understandings of the inner workings of the Linux development process that would be the equivalent of a Master of the Universe (MOTU) for Ubuntu. I really like the way Ubuntu has described their process-- that's the kind of discipline, care, and techical platform I'm looking for-- see their page here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopers

I don't care if this person is a Christian or whatever-- I need quick and fairly deep training, and then probably ongoing coaching, on this process from a real practitioner of that art, someone who lives and breathes this culture.

Confused yet?

I'm not plotting a career move into Linux development-- I want to use this model to develop the next generation of ritual resources for the UMC and all Christian worshiping communities everywhere ultimately, as all of this will be open source (no copyrights, ever, period!). And I think these kinds of folks have the process down...

Share your comments here, or send me contacts (phone is preferable to me-- I think I really need to talk to someone to explain what I'm trying to do) via email... tburtonedwardsatgboddotorg.

(Yeah, I've finally figured out how NOT to make email addresses online QUITE as subject to spambots-- with thanks to Jay Vorhees).

Thanks for whatever you can do, and whoever you know. And I hope some of y'all do know someone who's doing this stuff!

Peace,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Toward a Working Definition of Missional Church

Colleagues,

Here's the guts of a working definition of missional church on offer over at The Forgotten Ways blog...

So a working definition of missional church is... a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the Church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true Church. The Church itself is not only a product of that mission, but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.


Here's the rest of it...

How well does this say it for you and the work you're trying to do? What would you add? What might you change?

A post removed... but a conversation worth having

Yesterday I had posted a piece from GBOD under the title "Megachurches or Megaconsumers" that I had been given written permission by its author to post here. I asked for that permission because the article itself included a note stating that without such permission it could not be posted or used anywhere outside of GBOD.

At the request of the author, I have now removed it and and all links to it. If you downloaded it, I request on the author's behalf that you do the same. We can wait for official release of the final report in November.

The report is no longer here-- but the opportunity for good conversation is not. Indeed, the report may have obscured the kind of conversation we ought to engage-- which is less about what doesn't work to make and multiply disciples of Jesus Christ as opposed to consumers, and more about what does right where you are, where you find your ministry to be. We may have been tempted to say "told ya so" instead of to ask "how are WE actually doing if the same kinds of questions are being posed among the people who participate in being church/joining kingdom with us?" Or perhaps, more critically, if consumerism is Lord in some ministries, how good are we at helping people challenging that in ours-- or even in our own lives?

And consumerism is just ONE of the powers, is it not, even if it approximates the Legion of our own day? Where we are successful in establishing a witness that draws people more to Christ than their own interests, how are we also helping people avoid the other traps that even an anti-consumerist position might open up?

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards