If there is anything that frustrates me as a leader in what is being called an ’emerging church’ (I don’t call it that by the way) its the suspicion I often seem to encounter from those in more established churches, especially, (but not only) big churches.

I have hit it a few times recently and it disturbs me. I understand people have had bad experiences with those who may have cast their lot in new expressions of church, but to say we are all ‘anti-church’ is utter nonsense. To stereotype us as rebellious finger pullers is myopic in the extreme. It makes no more sense than me bagging all established churches for their various problems.

So I’m looking forward to this event:

download officer and a gentleman an movie

threat of exposure dvdrip Scott Vawser is pulling it together with Steve McKinnon and we’ll be using Steve Said for some input. At this stage I think I’ll be on the panel that is getting ‘interviewed’, (but I think that could change)

The idea is that we get a bunch of people who do church in different ways in the same room and we talk about what is really happening… what is actually going on… we don’t stereotype and we don’t throw just throw rocks. We listen, talk and learn from each other.

I am hoping we’ll have a few of big church guys willing to give their time to it, so that we can actually engage in some serious debate about the questions that are floating around out there.

I sense that while we will defintely have differences, we will also have a lot in common and it will be great to celebrate that rather than suspiciously ‘wondering’ about each others motives and practices.