Next NextGen Meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for June 9th at 12pm with lunch being provided.
Please contact the District Office to RSVP

40 Days of Prayer

Please check out this blogpost here: An Open Letter

And also this new website: UMC Young Clergy

Our 40 Days of Prayer will begin on May 18th and we hope that you will be praying along with us.

Traditional or Contemporary?

Last week, a speaker said that these terms to describe worship should no longer be used. These words bring about a point of contention and possibly deep resentment. Besides, what exactly does contemporary or traditional really mean? He argued that there are two, and only two types of worship: Relevant and Irrelevant. “Traditional” worship may be relevant to the older members of the congregation, but completely irrelevant to the younger generation, and therefore they may be seeing younger generations become scarce in their congregation. Do you agree the idea that there are only two types of worship and it’s not traditional or contemporary, but relevant and irrelevant?

Ians

(As silly as it may seem, it’s rather difficult trying to keep up with two different blogs. Trying to think of topics to blog about has led to this blog not being updated. For a blog to stay alive, it needs to be frequently updated. So, I decided that a lot of times, I’ll just blog the same post twice, here and my personal blog. So, if there are a few of you that follow both, I apologize. For those who just follow this blog, you have no problem  )

The average Joe (by the way, why is it called average Joe? Why not use another name? Like Average Andy?) Church-goer seems just that: a church goer. I think we have a lot of Ians floating around our churches. What do I mean? They’re Christians without Christ. I know that’s harsh and can be rather judgmental. I’m not trying to judge, but I’m just stating what I have been observing and discovering through conversations with people. And a lot of non-Christians view us this way too.

A Different Kind of Community

One of the communities that were brought up in the meeting was a church in Seattle called Quest. From what I read, they are a church that serves their community through a coffee house.

Could we do that in the UMC?

It seems like all the extension ministries deal with campsites. But I feel those extension ministries really only benefit churches and the already church-goers. (Maybe I am wrong)

I was thinking, how cool would it be if an annual conference or district decided to experiment and build/buy a coffee shop as an extension ministry, extending ministry to the non-churched or nominally religious.

I don’t think it would be necessary to have the coffee shop overtly Christian. So it couldn’t be named like UMC Coffee House or UMC (C for Coffee). But something like Common Grounds or One Cup or something else cheezy like that.

It would provide a place for people to just hang out. And each night of the week (minus Sunday) would offer ministry opportunities and/or fellowship opportunities.
Like Mondays could be a meeting place for an Anon. group.
Tuesdays could be bible studies and/or small group fellowship for singles, (maybe males on Tuesday and females on Wednesday) and how sometimes it’s just hard to be single and how lonesome it can get when everyone else around you is pairing up.

Thursdays, I don’t know… could be a night where people gather and talk about religion and politics and how one influences the other, and how one SHOULD influence the other.

And Fridays could be live music (and it doesn’t have to be Chrisitan music) and Saturdays would be the worship service.

Of course, the place would have to be big enough (or two stories) where people who don’t want to be a part of any of these things can still come and enjoy coffee. (And doubly of course, the coffee would have to be real good).

I’d go and spend a lot of time there. I’d probably also meet up with parishioners and youth members at this place.
This thought came to me as I was reading Alan Hirsch’s Forgotten Ways. In it he writes, quoting Edward de Bono, “patients generally prefer the doctor to use the known cure rather than seek to design a better on. Yet there may be much better cures to be found. He rightly asks how we are ever to find a better cure if at each critical moment we always opt for the traditional treatment.” (emphasis mine). His church actually experimented with purchasing a coffee shop, which is where the idea originated.

Or maybe, instead of pursuing ordination, I should muster, borrow, steal (joking.. kinda) money to open up a coffee shop of my own and pursue ministry in this way. The good thing about that is no more complaints from parishioners. But what’s worse? A customer’s complaint or a parishioner’s complaint?

What do you think?
If we were to pursue this idea, what would this ministry look like to you?

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!

May we always remember that Easter doesn’t happen one Sunday every year, but Easter happens every moment of our lives.

Stuff Talked About in Our Meeting

For this post, I’ll just post the general discussion, and then in posts to follow, will go in a bit deeper about the things we discussed.

About existing ministries

A welcoming community of service at University UMC – passion driven, welcoming of people and their gifts and questions.  Focused on becoming vs inviting

Seattle “Quest” community in coffee shop

Issues

How can we affirm peoples journey

And recognize what everyone brings to the journey

Tech and community

Pod casts,

Service – linking spirituality with action

essential relationship

places to make meaningful action,

Culture of “Church” vs Culture of spirit movement

Contrast with larger cultural values

Possibilities

Going out and engaging people, being in conversation

Being and modeling

Involving and surveying

One person at a time

Spiritual Praxis community (center) – opportunities for linking compassionate action and spiritual reflection and community  (Taize community, Iona covenant community, A Simple Way)

OC spiritual praxis center

A practicing community – Not a programmatic “retreat center”

A place where a person can come for a day, weekend, week or months

To engage the broken community,

Heal the wounded

Listen, celebrate the gifts….

A singing, praying, serving community

An opportunity to be part of a community that shares

Common commitments, support, service,

Community

from nakedpastor.com

During our gathering, one thing that seemed to keep coming up in our discussions was the idea of community, and the need for a genuine, authentic community.
I think a lot of people do feel disconnected. Even though we are surrounded by people in our daily lives, many of us are left feeling alone and lonely.
Instead of engaging regularly with our neighbors, many of us start thinking ‘high fences are the best neighbors.’
Or if you’re like me, you close the garage door as soon as you pull up to avoid any interactions with the neighbors.
Growing up in South Carolina, we had porches in our houses. But I think the porch is a thing of the past. Porches, at least from my recollection, always brought in conversations. I’ll walk to school, and people will be out the porch wishing me a good learning that day.
But now, instead of the porch, I think we like our TV more. Inside the comfort of our house.

And the truth is, we live in isolation.
Maybe that’s why facebook and myspace and social networks are doing so well.
Or maybe these social networks are feeding into our being isolated from physical community.
It seems like our goal is to avoid people, to avoid real human contact, as much as possible. I know that I’m naturally inclined to feel that way.

And the scarier thing is, I see this disconnect happening in many of our churches.
Sure, we meet and greet one another on Sundays. Our average-Joe church goer has many, many acquaintances and people to greet and people to greet him. She may be acquainted with many people, but isn’t known by any of them.

How do we change that?
I don’t think I’m way off saying that our culture, this generation, they are craving relationships.
So how do we go about providing an authentic community for people who feel so disconnected?

Two Blog Posts to Check Out

• Young Clergy Booth at an Annual Conference – Andrew Conard reserved a booth for young clergy at the Kansas West Annual Conference. Perhaps that’s something that we may want to look into here at the Cal-Pac Conference
• Open Letter to Young UMC Clergy – Ben Simpson has started a project for a 40 Day prayer for the leaders of our denomination and for the denomination itself. I think I (Joseph) am scheduled to write a prayer for the day of 5/22. I ask that you pray for our conference and our young and older clergy of the Cal-Pac, especially on that date.

Around the Blogosphere

• What is a new church or a new congregation?
• Andrew’s vision for church reform
• Why Guy stays in the UMC
• Thoughts on Worship songs. Agree? Disagree?

Picture for thought:

from ASBO Jesus