Still catching up on the 31 reverb10 prompts from the month of December. Little by little, I will get through them all!!!
So tomorrow, we start with our first monthly gathering of 2011. We are looking at Carol Howard Merritt’s “Reframing Hope
December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)
In the last year, a new group of conversation partners have begun meeting in Eastern Iowa. In some ways, it started with connections made at the JoPa Theological Conversation with Jurgen Moltmann back in 2009. A few of us realized – hey, there are Iowa folks here! And we committed to gather more locally and chat.
I also recieved an email from a guy who wanted to start talking about emergent theology/church themes near the beginning of that year. We live nearby and a coffee shop conversation began.
Since those initial plans, the Eastern Iowa Emergent Cohort was rebirthed. I’m not sure who started it, or who was involved, but the conversation had gone silent for a while. But we have some new faces, some new energy and last year planned three face-to-face conversations.
It has been so strange for me to enter these emergent conversations, because I am what Carol Howard Merritt calls a “loyal radical.” I am firmly planted in the tradition and I wouldn’t leave it for the world, but there are facets of the emergent movement that so speak to me. The deep sense of community, the diffusion of authority, the importance of communal discernment, the focus on a rule or way of life, the place for questions, etc. There aren’t a lot of places to talk about that either in the hierarchical church (although I am making those connections) or in the local congregation I serve. And to be honest, I have not come into the community through traditional venues like blogs and books either. I kind of just discovered it on my own and then sought words to explain what I was thinking/feeling.
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