Friend of Emergent|SA,
Hey everyone. Lots of upcoming speakers, concerts, events, etc:
• Second half of September (Specific time TBD). I’m planning a shared meal to welcome newcomers sometime the week of September 17-21. There’s 4 or 5 folks who’ve moved to SA this summer and have been looking for information about the emerging church conversation here in town. If you’re interested (whether you’re a newcomer yourself or simply interested in continuing the conversation), please email me offline and give me your preference (breakfast? lunch? coffee after dinner?) and some hint of availability, and I’ll put something together.
• Sept 20-30 (Specific time TBD). Emergent|SA friend and Food for the Hungry missionary Pamela Neumann will be back from Nicaragua the last two weeks in September (we haven’t seen Pamelita in 18 months!). Pamela will be speaking at First Presbyterian Church during the 10:45 am Contemporary Worship Service and following lunch on Sunday, September 30. She returns to Nicaragua on Monday, October 1. If you haven’t met Pamela, you really ought to. She brings a unique perspective to issues of poverty and hunger, and is chronicling her experiences living in Managua — Look for a lunchtime meetup announcement for the week of the 24-28.
• September (throughout the end of the month). Chiro-Java Coffee House on the main square in Seguin, TX is featuring a five-person show, featuring photography and paintings from our extended community, including Emergent|SA cohort facilitators Tim Snyder and Paul Soupiset, as well as paintings from Bri Morris — lay-abbess at The Netzer Co-op, a collaborative ministry co-operative that Tim Snyder is helping organize up the road in Seguin. Other artists include painter Maria Harrington and photographer Matt Brock. (Chiro-Java has hosted Emergent|SA events in the past and you’re warmly invited to make the half-hour trek out to see the art.)
• Oct 5-6. Richard Rohr. Many have experienced the church that is emerging as a fringe movement, on the outer skirts of Institutional Church. Father Richard Rohr is a Franciscan whose role as a priest in a religious order places him in a long tradition of prophetic voices. Since the early 1990's Rohr has been speaking a radical message of grace and re-centering our The Church. Father Richard Rohr is the founder of New Jerusalem, a community committed to kingdom ecclesiology and the founder of The Center for Contemplation & Action. Rohr has long hung out with voices like Brennan Manning (The Raggamuffin Gospel) and Jim Wallis (God's Politics) - both strong voices of emergence. Now, Rohr has been noted as wanting to put some of his last energy into this emerging church. Rohr is a keynote speaker of this years Soularize Confernce in the Bahamas. Richard has expressed a desire to be in conversation with local expressions of emergent folk. Tim Snyder is working, I think, on a cohort shared meal with Fr. Rohr, probably on the 5th.
• Oct. 2-5 Emergent Gathering in Glorieta, NM. Paul Soupiset is scheduled to go and is wondering if anyone else from the SA Cohort is going. Drop him a line.
• Oct 10. The Cobalt Season / Ryan and Holly Sharp are musicians and songwriters and members of seven society, a neo-monastic community in San Francisco, CA, along with Mark Scandrette, poet/activist/author and Emergent Village coordinator. The Sharps are part of The Cobalt Season, and are on tour this fall and coming to San Antonio to give a living room concert 8pm October 10, tentatively slated for the Soupiset house. Please bring $12 for the musicians plus a covered dish to share. We’ve all been getting into the new Cobalt Season CD, In Search of a Unified Theory. Scandrette will be sharing his poetry as well, and we’re trying to get Dan Harrington, né Foscoe Jones, to do some opening songs as well. It’s a school night, but c’mon out and join us. We’ll send another announcement closer to the date.
Brian McLaren on The Cobalt Season - “I just got back from Africa and have been listening to In Search of a Unified Theory nonstop for a couple days. I’m totally blown away. I really liked But I Tell You, but this one just soars. The lyrics are powerful. The songs themselves are so strong, so well structured. The vocals are perfect. And the arrangements are completely amazing. I thought of several of my favorite bands - Innocence Mission, the Weepies, and Sigur Rós. This CD should win a bunch of awards. Thanks for making it, man!”
•Oct. 19-20 Emergence 2007: a post-evangelical church for a post-christian world (Austin, TX) will still be held October 19-20 at Gateway Church. It is the second of two events based around the Listening to Beliefs of Emerging Churches book. The church leaders at this event will be Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, John Burke and Danielle Shroyer. So there will be a diversity of both theological belief and ways churches live out their faith represented. Scot McKnight is going to be the moderator; they are going to be breaking down the event into two sections. The first will be about the theology of emerging churches and the second section will be about the practices of emerging churches. (Youth Specialtes/Zondervan/NPC registration: ) Individual attendee $49 / Group of 10-20 $490 Registration includes a FREE copy of Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Church!
• Nov 17. Rob Bell (“the gods aren’t angry” tour; $17). Rob Bell lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he's the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. He also teaches in a short film format called NOOMA. Rob is the author of two books: Velvet Elvis and Sex God. “Part anthropology, part history, part deconstruction - this is new material that Rob hasn't taught before, exploring how humans invented religion to make themselves feel better.” Although Rob doesn’t self-identify as being part of the emerging church conversation, there’s a lot of de facto overlap in subject matter; it might be interesting to get a group to attend and then discuss.
• Nov 31-Dec 1. Diana Butler Bass Retreat, The Emerging Church — A Retreat on Christian Churches That Are Flourishing. Thanks to several churches, including the Episcopal Church, Diana Butler Bass will be presenting a conference in San Antonio on the Emerging Church. Her research shows that certain consistent practices – such as hospitality, contemplation, justice, discernment and worship – are core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover authentic Christian faith and witness today, and that the congregations that are flourishing are churches that take all of these practices seriously. Diana's work is bringing good news and hope to traditional, mainstream churches, as well as practical guidance on how to imagine and practice these core values. The conference will be an ecumenical event with participation by the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, St. Mark's, San Antonio, Madison Square Presbyterian Church, Travis Park Methodist Church, the Ecumenical Center, the SOL Center and the Workshop. (Event place is TBD). Dr. Butler Bass will share her findings and she will lead participants in conversation about an emerging Christianity that strives for greater spiritual depth and proactively engages the needs of the world.
"Butler Bass has debunked the myth that the only churches that are growing are Evangelical and Pentecostal." – Jim Wallace.
• Late Nov, TBD: Pre-conference meeting at Viva Book Store led by The Rev. Dr. John Lewis and the Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson.
Recent Emerging Cohort News:
• Emergent|SA welcomes baby Anna Sofia Baker — Labor day took Cohort co-facilitator Travis Baker and wife Misty by surprise as their daughter decided to take the day literally. Anna Sofia was born at 7:31pm, weighed 5lbs 5oz and was 18 inches long. Welcome!
• Emergent Village author and friend Karen E Sloan swung through San Antonio and Seguin recently; although we didn’t host a Cohort meeting like we originally planned, Karen was able to have some much-needed downtime here in SA …
• This summer we took our June and July meeting times to go through An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. We met a lot of new conversation partners this summer, frequently over lunches and breakfasts.
Your co-facilitators,
Travis Baker
Rudy Rocamontes
Tim Snyder http://www.smalltownabbot.com
Paul Soupiset http://soupablog.com
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