Companions,
I'm thanking God today for Twitter, for our companion Carl Thomas Gladstone, and for his Twitter post last week about Elaine Heath and Scott Kisker's new book, Longing for Spring: A New Vision for Wesleyan Community.
I'm also thanking God for my colleague, Steve Manskar, who let me borrow the book after he read it after I mentioned it to him last week after I saw Carl's tweet. I've now passed it on to another colleague, also in my Covenant Discipleship group, Tom Albin.
This little volume puts into 90-some pages of text personal narratives, solid history, and living examples of the very kinds of communities and community practices we have been seeking to incarnate and are already practicing, and even identifies the relationship between what they call "monastic communities" (or what we have called "missional groups") in much the same way as we did at emergingumc2.
Having this book in print is an amazing legitimation of what we've been talking about and working for.
It's a fun, and even fairly quick read.
And it includes a study guide at the end to use with groups where you are.
This isn't a sales pitch for the book. No commercial interest here at all. I have no idea who Wipf and Stock publishers are. It's just that if you're looking for something already in print by folks who are dedicated United Methodists that can help you make sense of what we've all been talking about and working on with others, this is really the first thing I've found that does that. And it does it really, really well.
Oh, and two UM bishops have endorsed it-- William Willimon and Sally Dyck.
So... as the voice of a child said to Augustine, "Take up and read!"
Blessed Advent and Christmastide,
Taylor Burton-Edwards
