The Emerging Church is Like a Box of Chocolates

Greenbelt 2008 Session One: The Emerging Church is Like a Box of Chocolates
"According to this ridiculously subjective narrative, the birth of Andrew Jones launched the global counterculture and his first voluntary visit to a church in 1968 signaled the beginning of the emerging church movement. Like Forrest Gump, Andrew is the accidental witness who tells the story the best he can but remains mostly clueless."

I submitted the titles of my two sessions at Greenbelt Festival this August. They will be hosted by Church Mission Society and there is still time to edit them if you can think of something better. Love some feedback. Is it just a stupid idea or is there some value is telling the story from one person's point of view? What should be included and excluded?
My previous talks at Greenbelt are here, including The Spirituality of Blogging. Greenbelt has forgotten to put me on the website this year but I hope you can find me in the program.

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Comments

[becky]

Can I get a copy of this talk? Sounds fascinating and wish I could be there.

[Brother Maynard]

Andrew, I love this idea... and echo Becky's sentiment. You'll have to post notes or a transcript or something. MP3?

In the movie version I imagine a scene in 1974 when Lesslie Newbigin is returning from India using local buses all the way... he gets lost and is about to return home, but Andrew Gump would be there to point him onto the right bus back to England, saying "Oh, but don't you want to see how England has changed since you've been away?"

[Mark]

Question is... which bit is the Coffee Cream - that one always gets eaten by my wife as I hate Coffee!

[Joe]

"Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." - Forest Gump (ficticious Character)

Followers of Christ always know what they're getting. How does someone go to a church and not know what they're getting? What am I missing?

[Jim Robertson]

“… is there some value in telling the story from one person’s point of view?” Well friend, in my business (barrister), we are dependent upon persons in such a role. We call them witnesses. And if the witness has sufficient qualifications, they may testify as an expert witness – one who may give evidence in the form of an opinion, and not just speak to observations. Opine Andrew – you are qualified. And historians – they too seem to rely on witnesses…and that guy Luke…

Now this box of chocolates business… whilst at one of the Disneyplaces (Orlando) for the first time in my 51 years, I had a minor epiphany. Playing off of Forrest’s mom saying ‘Life is like a box of chocolates…’ I found myself saying ‘Life in Dysneyplace (land/world/Epcot …) is like process cheese in a squeeze tube – controlled, predictable, not all that nutritious, and if you eat too much yer gonna git a gut ache.’

So now to the big question – if emerging church is the box of chocolates (and I think it is and needs to be), then what kind of church is the process cheese in a squeeze tube?

[andrew]

processed cheese? - sounds like the sermons I used to preach as a baptist pastor, all processed nicely into a 3 pointed tube with a motivational twist at the end.

[andrew Kenny]

Yes I agree, I only met you once over a year ago when I gave you a million dollars (Way of the Master tract :in case people think you are a secret millionaire!,and think you are definitely the Forrest Gump of the Emerging Church appearing almost in the shadows but always there as the ubiquitous presence in all that is going on.

[andrew Kenny]

P.S.But I would not say clueless.