I have added a customized google search engine that will search emerging church themed blogs at www.accessiblechurch.ca.

This should help people find what other people in the emerging church movement find postings on any topic. Just go to the web site and in the box at the top right side where it says search this web site, click on the arrow next to it and select emerging church. Type in a topic like disability, Jesus, barrier and use your enter key.

You can also go to the theology page and find a box with emerging church search.

The importance of understanding our past (in the church) has come up in several threads I've read lately.

Would anyone be interested in reading and discussing a chapter called "The Genesis of the Church" by church historian, Roger Haight? 

What I was thinking was that, if there is interest, we could read and discuss it, focusing especially on its relevance to things that are happening now, like the Emerging Church movement for example.

This is a 70 pg. chapter on the "Genesis of the Church" for discussion by anyone interested in reading and reflecting on it together. The author, Roger Haight, is a well known church historian, who belongs to the Jesuit community.

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN HISTORY  BY ROGER D. HAIGHT

CHAPTER 2:  "GENESIS OF THE CHURCH"  (free preview by Google)

Publisher:Continuum, 2004

ISBN - 10:0826416306
ISBN - 13:9780826416308

I wonder, as our congregations "emerge" - that is become more "emergent" and spirituality becomes more personal and authority more democratized - will there be a place for classically educated, former seminary students now ordained ministers?

I wonder about this a lot.

Not just because my pension depends on it.

In my congregation all manner of folk sit side by side, not disturbed by the fact that the woman sitting next to them does not have a developed Christology, the guy behind feels more comfortable with an "Eastern" expression of the Trinity, the woman taking up the offering doesn't believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and the fellow pouring coffee considers the day that he was "born again" to be the most important day of his life.

I was in Calgary recently to attend a few presentations by Richard Rohr. His work has had a strong influence on me ever since I first heard him at a Sojourners event a few years ago. He is an American, a Franciscan priest, and a renowned teacher of spiritual development, especially for men. Rohr was in Calgary at the invitation of the Franciscan community.

One of Rohr's presentations was on the Emerging Church movement. He calls Emerging Church a "movement" in order to distinguish it from the later stages of evolution he calls "machines, museums, and monuments." As a movement, says Rohr, the Emerging Church defies definition and analysis to a certain degree. His attempt is an early one to identify some common threads in the movement.

The four themes of Emerging Church that Rohr identified are: