TallSkinnyKiwi

Baptist Talk [Updated]

"Ed Stetzer provided the other highest water mark. He defined missional as "a church on mission in its setting," which was fine for a starting definition, but could have been a little stronger by including the incarnational aspect of it. He busted the SBC wide open by reminding us that the culture that we are the most connected to is the culture of 1954." Marty Duran

- Steve McCoy has the skinny on the bloggers, the talks, and what really mattered at the Southern Baptist Convention last week.

- A number of us will be at the Baptist World Alliance Congress but so far we will not have a high profile role. Pete Grieg (24/7 Prayer) will be sharing whats going on with prayer and boiler rooms and Simon Hall (Revive) will be organizing something subversive. I will be there to cheer them on. So will Si Johnston (Protest4.com), Shannon Hopkins and others

Emergent Church: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A report on Emergent Church from Alan Roxburgh who is a deeply respected teacher and advisor. Alan brought together 40 leaders from USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Australia in conjunction with Allelon. I was with them also, and also acted as a "listener, tuning in to the larger picture of what was happening and reporting back to Alan and the team.

Here is Alan from his report entitled "Emergent Church: Filled with Creative, Energetic Potential.
"Something is happening! It may not be all the postmodern things that are claimed, but there is something going on here that has the potential to be deeply missional and innovative for the church on this continent . . ."
"At their best they courageously and joyfully enter the worlds of Goths and tattoo parlors to form Christian life in, with, beside and for people who would never be welcome in most congregations. At their worst they become the purveyors of more experiential, artsy, aesthetic forms of religious goods and services."

Report on Human Trafficking

Baptist Standard has details of a new American report on sex trafficking.

On the UK front, Protest4.com are meeting in Edinburgh in July as a part of the G8 talks and Live Aid. Talk to Si Johnston if you want to be involved.

Billy Graham: More Thoughts

"The evangelist's upcoming New York crusade recalls his historic confrontation with segregation, fundamentalism, and mainline theology nearly 50 years ago." Christianity Today

- Submersive Influence has the best blog post.

I had the privilege of working with the Billy Graham team during their San Francisco crusade - great time and a great honor. I got to know Scott Lenning really well - his son was the same age as mine. Scott now works for MarketPlace Chaplains USA. He's a good man.

Steve Knight is Manager of the Internet Department of Billy Graham Evangelism Association and is heading off to Moldova shortly to help in the training sessions. Steve has been involved in the emerging church/ UnderGround Railroad/Steiger Ministries for many years and he blogs at Knightopia. He also weighed in at 86% Emergent.

A 6 Week Pilgrimage

My daughter Elizabeth (12 years old) is preparing for a 6 week pilgrimage to Spain - the Camino de Santiago. Elizabeth will be going with our dear friend Cindy. Debbie has the skinny on her blog.
We walked part of is as a family a few years ago - we prayed, walked, read our Bibles, talked to other spiritual seekers and pilgrims along the way. It was an incredible time - Tamara took her first steps on the Camino. Thousands of seekers go every year to Spain for different reasons.

Die Gefährten: Roundtable

Invitations go out next week to the Global Emerging Church Roundtable to be held in Gotha, Germany at the Freakstock Festival. I am really excited about this one because it brings the focus back to the underground countercultures that gave the emerging church its start in so many counties.

We are expecting about 50 leaders and representatives from 30 countries. The dominant group will be German which is great  - the Germans have so much to offer and teach us. I am always impressed when i go there. (Last April I spoke at Kubik)

The name of the roundtable was decided by Mirko and the other Germans like it..
... "gemeinschaft" has a cool meaning - or "gemeinde" also ... but as mark posted in your blog - it sounds boring. since a few days, i like the word "gefährten" - the german title from "the fellowship of the ring" was "die gefährten (des ringes)" so my suggestion is: "die.gefährten" - maybe mark has a better idea - he is also german :) and cooler than me ;)

We already have representatives and leaders from USA, Canada, Germany, Norway, UK, Middle East, and a lot of possibilities from European countries (if i can convince their denominations or mission groups to buy them a train ticket). There are some spaces available if you know of someone who is impassioned for their country, has won the trust of the institutions, and is already starting or empowering others to start new contextual forms of ministry in the emerging culture, then let me know with an EMAIL.

You can pray for those who are coming - that it will be a time of understanding the times, and sensing God's heart for what needs to happen. There will be teaching and training over 2 days so pray for those teaching. Trevor MacPherson from Vancouver, will be there also. There will be NO COST for the roundtable (thanks to JesusFreaks and BOAZ) but it is strictly invitation only and delegates will have to get their own transport figured out. But anyone can come and have a really fun time at Freakstock with about 6000 - 7000 young people freakin out over Jesus with bad haircuts and loud music.  There is a fee for those just attending the festival but it is very reasonable and scalable for Eastern European countries. More later.

(Images from Jesus Freaks Homepage)

No More Fighting

My daughter Abigail was in a musical last night. We joined about 800 others in watching the performance and songs, some of which Abigail and her school friends wrote. The guy singing from the table is a Bosnian pop star. More on my wife's blog

"Tomorrow there will be no fighting.
Tomorrow there will be no riots.
No more ruined, empty houses.
No more lies and empty promises.
Tomorrow there will be more talking.
Tomorrow there will be more listening."

You might be Emergent If . . .

Time for the end of the week links - scrap pieces of unrelated news and random links :
- Some Chinese house churches are being closed. Link
- Carmelite Nun who created PrayTheNews.com dies. Link. HT
- Ekklesia has some good links to articles on house churches,
- Racial issues - Rudy recommends reading PostmodernNegro's post on deep ecclesiology.

Most intriguing thought of the week was from Jolly Blogger who started off something in his comments section that I am sure will get some milage - "You might be Emergent if . . ."

Here are a few of mine. You might be Emergent if . . .

- you apologize for your avatar or habbo character not turning up to Cyber Church on Sunday.
- you know the best way to scrape candle wax off carpet
- you have considered putting dreads in your gotee
- you have more metal in your face than on your hands
- you email your wife even though she is in the next room
- you write so much in hypertext that you think your name starts with "a href"
- you don't remember how to send a letter through the post. [more]

Getting Your Kiwi's Straight

I write this post as a response to the confusion on the Jolly Blogger post about Kiwis and the Emergent church and also because many of you ask.

A kiwi is:

1) a flightless bird native to New Zealand
2) a fruit formerly known as the Chinese Gooseberry
3) a person who comes from New Zealand, also known as GodZone country.

Emergent Kiwi (Steve Taylor) is a New Zealander with one of the best books on Emerging Church - Out of Bounds Church. as well as an interesting blog post A-Z of the Emerging Church
Paul Fromont is Prodigal Kiwi
Duncan MacLeod is Post Kiwi, since he now lives in Australia.
There are plenty more Kiwis where they came from like Rachel, who blogs at Cre8dJournal and Stephen Garner at Greenflame. And even more Kiwis have dispersed around the globe and are acting as salt of the earth and light of the world. Yeehhh Kiwis!!!

I am one of that blessed dispersion, the issuing forth of export-quality Kiwis to bless the families of the earth d;-] I am Tall Skinny Kiwi, because I was born in New Zealand and left when I was 17. I am also 6ft 5ins and fat-deficient.

Please do not confuse Kiwis with Aussie bloggers like Phil Baker and Andrew Hamilton who might be interesting and on rare occasion have something to say (The Emerging Missional Church: Thoughts in Progress" by Darren Rowse is a good example) . . . but PAH LEAZE do not settle for anything less than the GENUINE KIWI ARTICLE.

Do I hear an AMEN from God's Chosen?

Orkney's G8 Gig: July 2

Update: 9 bands including Junction Pool [Celtic-Fusion band] from Edinburgh. The concert will be called Orkney Musical Stramash. All profits go to Make Poverty History through Christian Aid. Organiser John Adams from Kirkwall.