In case anybody is interested... Looks like a great EDGE webinar!

TODAY: EDGE webinar with Phyllis Tickle, "Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Came From, Why It Matters." Monday, Dec. 5, 7:00 pm ET. Free. Register on the EDGE website.

http://www.edge-ucc.ca/transformation/webinars/emergence-christianity/

Declining church membership, the breaking down of denominational loyalty and barriers, the rise of new "emergent" churches that blend ancient rituals, litanies and hymns together with contemporary forms of worship and calls for social action--something is happening out there. But what is it? And why is it happening now?

What's happening is as old as religion itself, says Phyllis Tickle, author of the book The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why. Tickle, who will be speaking at The Great Emergence, a one-day conference in Winnipeg on October 31, 2009, explored the link between the church's history of change and the new face of the church today in an interview with Winnipeg freelance writer John Longhurst.

What is the Great Emergence?

Tickle: The Great Emergence refers to a monumental phenomenon in our world today that affects every part of our lives-religiously, socially, culturally, intellectually, politically and economically. The world is changing rapidly, and in so many ways, that we can hardly keep up with it.

In the religious sphere, many people have observed that these kind of changes seem to happen every 500 years-a period of upheaval followed by a period of settling down, then codification, and then upheaval again because we do not like to be codified.

For Western Christianity, the Protestant, or Great Reformation was about five hundred years ago. Five hundred before that you hit the Great Schism, when the church divided between east and west. Five hundred years earlier you have Pope Gregory the Great, who helped bring the church out of the dark ages.