As we near the end of this wondercafe book study, your comments re: this chapter are most welcome.

It seems to me that if we follow Bruce Sanguin's vision...

...the poverty stricken rural churches, where 98+ percent of their money goes to pay the minister, who have buildings that are old, inaccessible and lacking in facilities, who have very amateur musicians at best and low attendance...

are a lost cause.

I'm trying to think of how on earth I could impliment this stuff in one of the churches I serve and I can't make it fit very well at all.  Maybe I lack imagination however because I keep envisioning a large urban church when I read your posts.

P.S. I ordered this book (a little late for these conversations unfortunately and it has yet to be shipped)

Hello Meredith, 

Too bad you are still waiting for your copy of the book .  

I agree that some of Bruce's ideas seem to be geared to larger congregations.   Did you follow the discussions on the earlier threads?  I really enjoyed reading about Spiral Dynamics.

Hi Meredith:

Welcome to our book discussion group! At the end of the chapter-by-chapter discussion, we'll summarize the whole book, and you'll get your say on the book. Moreover, you can download the Spiral Dynamics, which I consider the most important part of the book, from www.woodlakebooks.com/emergingchurch

Bruce's book is just a model, as it says on the cover. Each congregation wishing to emerge can take from it what suits them and adapt it to their needs.

We are similar to the small rural congregation you mention in your post, so our approach to emerging would necessarily differ from Bruce's, who heads a big city congregation in one of Canada's wealthiest suburbs.

We, our congregational book discussion group, would, for instance, not go for the hand-picked think tank, and perhaps not for a think tank at all, but involve the whole congregation in the process of emerging. As for non-negotiables, our group decided that Jesus welcomed everyone unconditionally, and so should we.

Hi Arminius, 

You wrote:  At the end of the chapter-by-chapter discussion, we'll summarize the whole book, and you'll get your say on the book.

This is a great idea, Arminius.  How do you see us summarizing the whole book?

After my last wondercafe book study (where I had an unofficial co-host, not an official one like yourself), I wrote up a summary about it.  This turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise.  I posted my review here and on another website, and submitted it to my church newsletter. 

I would appreciate having an opportunity to discuss the concepts of this book in depth - could we start the chapter by chapter summary after Christmas? It's encouraging to hear that there are some things I could apply to a small congregation.

Something that I'm struggling with is that anytime I talk about plans, goals and future direction I'm met with blank stares by the majority.  There is a small group moving for change but it is a small minority of relative new-comers.

How do you get folks motivated and excited about goal setting and vision for the ministry?  How do pastors "equip the saints"?

This was, I thought, the most important chapter in the whole book. Before I leant the Minster my copy, I gave him a photocopy of this chapter.

This is the chapter that I referred to as subversive.  So many little things you can do, with or without the support of the ultra conservative neighsayers in the place.  Little things that you just sneak in.

We put up signs.

We bought orange mugs fopr visitor at Coffee and Conversation.

We have people wearing "Ask Me" tags.

Smiling greeters at the door.

IMHO, if you do nothing else advocated in the book, take care to apply what is in this chapter.

IT

Russ

Hi paradox3:

I have already summarized the book for the final session of our congregational book study group, and have the summary on file. I am willing to flesh it out a bit more, and post it here on wondercafe--after Chrismas, as Meredith suggested.

Arminius, 

How fabulous!  It will be great to do a final thread which summarizes the whole book.  After Christmas should work out very well for it.

Yes, Russ, there are many subversive little things in this chapter!

The most subversive thing we did was host a wondercafe.life! every first and third Friday in our church hall. We bought real wondercafe mugs and posters, painted some wondercafe signs and even re-painted our hall in moccha tones. Our wondercafe.live! is an open discussion forum, much like www.wondercafe.ca, and our biggest outreach project so far.

In wondercafe.live! we get away with discussing things we could not discuss in church. It already brought us some new congregants, and I am positive there will be more. 

Arminius

Great idea.  I shall pass that along.

I think that starting in January, we are going to try and have a coffee and muffin session BEFORE the service.  What a radical idea.

IT

Russ

Hi Russ: Over the past four months our congregational book discussion group on The emerging Church met before the service. We had freshly brewed coffee while discussing. We enjoyed the coffee, but light snacks like muffins would have gone well with it because some of us came without having had breakfast.

Great ideas! 

It's hard for clergy tho who have two services on Sunday morning and the churches are 25 minutes apart to do much after service stuff though

Meredith

Want to generate an instant smile, take him/her to Second Cup for a latte, or bring one in.

Works every time.

IT

Russ