I wish i could have had a chance to join the New Kind of Church conference in the UK. Sounds really exciting … but thanks those who blogged their thoughts I get bits anf pieces of gems as well especially from the organic church blog and eavesdrop on some discussions after the conference.
here’s at least three paragraphs worth chewing on!
We all particularly appreciated the attitudes of Brian and Jason. The posture of hope, humility, expectation, and grace in a time when many things are being questioned was a refreshing change. It was not a question of what was wrong with church but what can be learnt and changed. The image of learning not being linear but being maybe more like a tree trunk’s rings was helpful, i.e. each new stage having to incorporate all of the previous stages to grow. In answer to the question “We don’t want to chuck the baby out with the bath water” Brian said “I don’t want to chuck anything out”, but learn from it. Many of us are trying to chuck *everything* out, so it is a timely lesson. ~Mark Norridge
By embracing the good, bad and ugly of our church story including our own stories we can learn from them rather than simple react. It was precisely this kind of gracious attitude that Brian (and Jason) demonstrated so well throughout the course in the way they presented where we are at and began to layout thoughts for where we might consider going. ~ Dave Eadie
If I had to some up the theme of the 3 days, it would be that it is not about Christianity or The Church; it’s about following Christ. That got me thinking about the fact that we used to be referred to as “the people of the Way.” That carries with it ideas of movement and direction, a way of life and a community. Now we talk about “Christianity” or “Christians.” This gives the impression of an institution or religious adherents. There are significant differences there. ~ Graham Old