Furtherness & Change

This has been a great couple of days. I have been at the Wesley Conference and the Everything Must Change conf. Both of which Brian McLaren is speaking at. Last night at the Wesley conference there was some amazing stuff that was deconstructed. I will post more on this later. But I was and am excited about where the Nazarene denomination is heading.

I am having some awesome conversations with the folks that I came with about what this idea of change looks like for us. Change is hard, and painful and sometimes just not fun. But we are certainly seeing the need for change in us, in our belief system and in our world.

May we be a part of that change.

NNU's 2008 Wesley Center Conference

Brian McLaren will be the keynote speaker at this years Wesley Center Conference "Furtherness: Holiness Reoriented in a Changing World." It is funny, I have already had someone tell me they won't be going because Brian is the speaker. Saddens me a little. But I know plenty of other people who will be going. So it should be fun and I am certain that I will be challenged and grow from it. Brian will also be at NNU for his "Everything Must Change" tour. The registration cost will cover both events. Sweet deal as well!! So, here is the registration info in case you are interested. Hope to see you there.

Tony Jones in Baker City

So we hosted Tony this past Sunday. And it was an awesome day. I told Tony that he was like a birthday present to myself since this past Sunday was my birthday.

Anyway, he promised me that he would drop a couple grenades Sunday PM and he let a couple small ones go in the AM. What I found interesting was that I didn't think he dropped any. As I processed that I realized that I did not think he dropped any because I agree with him.

Not surprisingly, there were some folks that did not agree with him and in fact were hit by those grenades. What really struck me though was the fact that they are upset over the fact that we brought Tony to Baker City. Like it is a bad thing. So I try and look at it from their perspective. Still I can't get there. Because I actually think it is a good thing to listen to, read and try and understand those that I disagree with. Because I think it would force me to be a critical thinker. Guess that is a bad thing though.

We have already had a couple of people lash out, last night and this morning. I think it is going to be an interesting week.

Needless to say, Tony challenged us and made us think. I have had the opportunity to talk with several people about this as well. I was very surprised by how many people there are that are excited about what Tony brought. I just was not sure before that there were this many. I told Tony later that at least now we have a pretty good idea about who is and is not at the table.

I have to say that the best part of the weekend was getting to hang out with Tony and his brother Andrew. I almost feel bad that I took so much of their time and not many people got to hang out with them as well, almost. It was sweet getting to know these guys and form a friendship. I look forward to the continued formation of that friendship. we were even late to church Sunday night because we were hanging out at my house.

Emerging Chruch

Here is an article that you might like to read about the emerging church by Scot McNight.