Perkins (the School of Theology at SMU) is hosting Minister’s Week on February 2nd to the 4th. Here’s the link to their site: http://smu.edu/theology/public_progs/MinWeek/minweek.html .
The topic: the emerging church! If you are in the Dallas area or are interested in anyway, then you should make sure to come by. MethoMergent Lab is setting up a lunch for those who are interested in joining the cause (I’ll post details once I finalize things with the Perkins People).
A couple things have me pretty excited to attend:
1) Most of the participants are of older generations. I’m curious to see what the general reaction will be.
2) The keynote speakers that are coming–Doug Padgitt, Tom Sine, and Karen Ward are all great people but none of them are Methodist. I really wish that one of the keynotes was a United Methodist who was practicing emergent forms of ministry. This is sort of unfortunate because part of what has led to a negative reaction from many “old guard” ministers is that the emergent movement is “the end of denominationalism.” Much of what Doug Pagitt says has led to this notion.
3) Elaine Heath. Although she is not a keynote speaker, she will moderate a panel that will include discussion on ways to incorporate emergent practices, theology etc into a denominational structure. She has some innovative experience with this through something called New Day which is a joint effort of Perkins, the Wesley Foundation at SMU, Lovers Lane UMC (they have the coolest name ever), the North Texas Annual Conference and Epworth (an intentional community of seminarians). I think her experiences and voice can infuse a lot of hope and interest.
4) I’m anxious to talk with more people about the initial work that we’re doing and see who else can get excited about it.
If you’re going to be at Minister’s Week, please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment. Also, if you’re going to a conference that might be good for talking about the MethoMergent Lab, try contacting the people leading the conference and put it together. I’m building a database that will hopefully lead to several resources for emergent networking within the UMC. Let me know where you’re going and I can set you up with some tools to gather information.
Peace, Mike
PS – Still looking for people to contribute to this blog. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll add you onto the list.
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Hey Mike!
I was at Ministers Week this week and it was quite good! i’d love to de-brief the experience with you sometime soon!
Joe
Tell everyone we say, “Hi!”
Joe, that would be great! Let’s connect and figure out when to get together.
Soooo, unfortunately I wasn’t able to put together a gathering at Minister’s Week. I had a baby instead! He came a little early, but he’s healthy and PERFECT IN EVERY WAY so I’m glad. Sorry I couldn’t get folks together, but I know that folks understand. Thank you!
I’m looking forward to talking with people who were there. Also, I’m going to start posting some ideas on the main site. I hope that folks will comment.
Peace,
Mike
Hey everyone, especially Mike,
We had a great time at Minister’s Week, and I heard a significant number of “older people” say that we shattered their stereotypes about emergence and about what the New Methodists want. People were extremely interested in New Day, especially since North Texas Conference is supporting THREE interns to work with me in the coming year to start more New Day communities around the metroplex. Thanks be to God!
Elaine Heath