Stories of Emergence

At the end the SUFES bookstore beat the rest in bringing in the EmergentYS stuff. I read Todd Hunter’s chapter first simply because he was very kind and encouraging to me during my “tough” time trying to figure out who I was and what I’m called to do, and of course the kind of direction I felt “led” to pursue (a personal contact or relationship really makes a difference in how we read something).

I did a strange thing as well … I read Mike Yaconelli’s Introduction and Brian McLaren’s Afterword and will be working through the stories in random.

From Yaconelli …
“… I’ve never lost my love for the church, the glorious odd collection of unimpressive, ordinary, flawed people who make up the community of God, the body of Christ.” (p. 14)

“… our stories are the workshop of faith.” (p. 19)

“… what we remember — how we put it together — speaks volumes about who we are.” (p. 20)

“Stories, are the most effective way to combine complicated and difficult-to-explain truth into simple, understandable bites of reality we can grasp.” (p. 21)

From McLaren …
“… people, including Christians, never grow up … Our Stories never end as long as we’re alive.” (p. 222)

” … it’s good to remember that we’re talking emergence here, not exiting or expiring. The stories in this volume represent an ongoing … no, more than ongoing … growing and passionate commitment to the Christian faith, to the local church, to the ongoing message and community and revolution begun by Jesus Christ. That’s good news!” (p. 224)

” … these storytellers share a common hope that their struggle (which is far from over — remember, we never finish growing up) will be worthwhile, that their reaching and aspiring and seeking and finding and learning/unlearning/relearning will be fruitful, that their stories will somehow advance the story of a mystery articulated by Jesus, a mystery called the kingdom of God, a story of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.” (p. 225)