Friends,
We will be gathering again for the Central Valley Cohort This Thursday
October 26th from 7pm-9pm. James Bergen & Matt Insley have graciously
invited us to North Fresno Church for the meeting.
We will be discussing the first chapter of The Shaping of Things to
Come. If for some reason you have not been able to pick up the book
and have not read the first chapter we invite you to still join us as
you will still easily be able to participate in the dialogue. Below
are the directions:
North Fresno Church - 5724 N. Fresno Street. 431-0333 church office
number / 375-0243 James' cell. We will meet in the conference room -
enter through the church office (entry closest to Fresno Street). If
you are coming from out of town call James for more specific
directions.
I hope to see many of you there.
Friends,
We are excited to get together again after the Summer for a new year of conversation and learning. Our September meeting will be held this Thursday, September 21, 7:00pm. We will be meeting at Wesley United Methodist which is located at 1343 E. Barstow (map). The church is located in between First and Cedar near Fresno State. Bet Hannon will be our hostess. We will be meeting in the conference room in the office which is located at the center of the church campus.
We hope that everyone will be able to join us. Tom Cotter will be leading a discussion at the cohort this week. There is no preparation necessary. However, if you wanted to do a little reading you could browse through the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation. Tom will be bringing copies as well.
Also, we will also be introducing a book that we would like to read together as a cohort this year. The book is called The Shaping Of Things To Come: Innovation & Mission for the 21st Century by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. We hope everyone will be able to pick this book up and read the first chapter for our October gathering which will be held on Thursday October 19th. Overstock has it for $14.29 with shipping (Amazon is 13.57 without) .
We are really excited to launch a new year of growing together to better understand what it means to be an active follower of Jesus Christ.
Barry Falke & Tom Cotter
Friends,
The next gathering for the central valley cohort is scheduled for July 19th at 7:00pm. We tried as hard as possible to pick the day that worked for the most people. We will meet at Tower Mosaic Church. There is a map attached below. We hope to see as many of you there as can make it.
Sojourners,
It has been a while since I have really had time to sit and think about
our cohort. With a six week old and some sleepless nights it has been
hard enough to focus on my full-time job. That being said I wanted to
coordinate a gathering for July. I know that the summer is somewhat
hectic so what I propose is that we try to meet in July, take August
off and then connect again in September. I feel deeply that our times
together have been rich and are necessary as we progress together in
joining God's mission for the world.
I would love some feedback for a date in July to connect, which week is
best and which day? Please either e-mail me or leave a comment about
what might work best. I hope this e-mail finds everyone well and I
will look forward to seeing you all again soon.
Barry Falke
Friends,
I felt energized when I left out cohort last week. For two reasons really. First, I feel so grateful that I have some new friends who are willing to think about what it means to follow God in the postmodern context that we are living in. Second, Ii feel that our dialogues together thus far have been insightful really great. Thanks again to James for leading us last week. I have been further reading Exclusion & Embrace and I truly have been changed by Volf's writing on forgiveness, making space for others and inviting them in. I really pray that we would be involved in transforming communities so that we can make space like that for even our offenders as Jesus did. See my post on that on my newly created blog at www.barryfalke.blogspot.com. Anyway, I am so glad to be journeying together with some like minded people. Let's continue to consider who else would be interested in the conversation.
Our next Cohort gathering will be April 20th at 7:00pm. We will be talking about some topics out of Brian Mclaren's More Ready Than You Realize. This is a wonderful, not to heavy read. If you have a chance to pick it up before next month I would say do it. If not, I am going to try to post or e-mail some segments that we will focus on for next meeting. I am especially excited about discussing the idea of "in/out" mentality in the Christian church. By that I mean the way that most Christians view others in their context as either inside the Christian community or distinctively outside the Christian community. If I remember right, Mark Baker (Prof @ MBBS) also writes about this topic some in his book: Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace and Freedom, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
To begin the conversation, I am wondering how we have seen the church be inclusive or exclusive through the use of "in/out" mentality? Any thoughts?
Posted By Barry
Yale conversation for emergent cohort
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Looking forward to conversation and relationship this Wednesday night.
I thought I would get our conversation going from a theme from the emergent theological conversation held at Yale at the beginning of February. Miroslav Volf was the theologian that helped shape the conversation there.
The main part of the conversation came from Volf’s book “Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.” In this book he talks about the importance of developing “double vision” saying:
“…we enlarge our thinking by letting the voices and perspectives of others, especially those with whom we may be in conflict, resonate within ourselves, by allowing them to help us see them, as well as ourselves, from their perspective, and if needed, readjust our perspectives as we take into account their perspectives. Nothing can guarantee in advance that the perspectives will ultimately merge and agreement be reached. We may find that we must reject the perspective of the other. Yet we should seek to see things from their perspective in the hope that competing justices may be converging justices and eventually issue in agreement.
Reversing perspectives may lead us not only to learn something from the other, but also to look afresh at our own traditions and rediscover their neglected or even forgotten resources.” (p. 213)
Conversation starters:
. volf critiques the evangelical community for emphasizing its identity in sectarian ways-- I am what is not outside, rather than being defined by who we are. Do you agree with this? How has the church engaged in conversation with “others” that has not been helpful? How would “double vision” begin to shape our conversations, and would it be helpful in our emerging context?
. Volf says that we need to develop “healthy boundary maintenance” in our theological method. He emphasizes the need to enter the space of the other and make space in ourselves, but suggests boundary maintenance as a key to doing this. He never really defined what that looks like on a day-to-day basis. If our conversations on truth and epistemology are virtually limitless, as Volf suggests, where and how do we develop healthy boundary maintenance?
. How have you learned to have healthy conversations within your journey in the emerging church movement? What have you found life giving within this conversation?
How is that for a start?
See you Wednesday,
James Bergen
We will be meeting this Wednesday at Tower Mosaic Church , 7 pm.
Google Map
If you're coming from the Clovis area and want to ride together let me know. Post a comment so we can hook up.
Posted by Tom
Gang, looking forward to seeing you next Wednesday night. Here is my blog address which contains some of my thoughts and reflections from the Miroslav Volf emergent conversation held at Yale last month: http://jamesbergen.blogsome.com. Let's jump off some of those themes or some of your own if you have read his stuff. I plan on putting together a few questions or thoughts prior to our gathering and posting them here (probably not until next week sometime) - just one or two to get our conversation going.
Also, emergent is releasing some of the conversation on-line. You can access it here: http://emergent-us.typepad.com
See you next week,
James
Friends,
Our first Cohort meeting I thought was a great success. I want to again encourage all who attended to invite someone new to join us for our next gathering. As best as I can remember, our next scheduled gathering is for Wednesday March 15th, 2006 at 7:00pm. I can not remember whether or not we set a location. Maybe someone can leave a comment about that. I was not sure whether we were meeting at Tower Mosaic again or possibly at Intersection. Hope you are all doing well and look forward to seeing you all soon. By the way, I still plan on e-mailing everyone with all our e-mail addresses. Look for that in the next week.
Posted By Barry Falke
In these times where the church is changing rapidly and where many groups are seeking new expressions of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ we are seeking to provide space for conversation, friendship and support. The Central Valley cohort will allow to discuss different ideas and evaluate what it means to be a follow of Christ in the postmodern era we are living in.
We have scheduled our first cohort gathering for February 16, 2006 at 7:00pm. We will be meeting at Tower Mosaic which is located in Fresno's Tower District at 1040 N. Fulton Ave, Just south of Olive.
We are planing to meet on the 3rd Thursday of each month. Join us for our first gathering as we dialogue further about just what we want to do in our times together.
Posted by: Barry Falke
