This blog is supposed to be about the journey of starting a church within the NYC art community, but it also goes into general emerging stuff also. This post is very much about our journey.
We are on a bumpy part of the road, rather than a boat in a storm, we are a sailboat in the doldrums. No wind, really hot.
70% of our congregation is gone for the whole summer - and when you have 20 people and only 5 are left, it's quite hard to hold a meeting. After two and a half years of struggling and battling, with amazing miracles and signs of growth, to suddenly hit this wall of nothingness has been brutal. The only word is brutal.
To make it worse, the building that I live in, and that the church meets in has just been sold and we need to vacate by Sept. 1st. Finding space in NYC is very difficult, and with human and other resources so low this summer, it adds it right into the brutal category.
I'm going to God for my strength, but I have been quite depressed for two weeks now. So, there you have the journey...brutal and depressed. If anyone in the future ever gives me any grief about taking a salary or having too much power in the churches decisions, I am going to just remember this brutal, hot, dry doldrums and ignore them completely. They weren't here.
I'm not despairing, but I am depressed. I know God is with me, but it's still brutal.
By the way, I knew this was coming, I just didn't think it would be this bad. The other ministry I used to be a part of here with NYC artists, would just take the whole summer off because of this same thing. I'm hoping next year we have 50 people going into the summer, so then we can carry on with 20...that would be fine.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Sunday, July 02, 2006
The Cohort Table
We had our first NYC Emergent Village Cohort gathering last week. It was a great group of people, and as we expect here in NYC white males were in the minority!!
Brian McLaren is often asked whether EC is just a conversation, or a movement. He says that he does not want to see it become a movement until all the parties are at the table - that we need to hear from the leaders of the churches in postcolonial countries and from more groups other than white suburban evangelical males in the US.
Well, here in NYC we are urban, we are from pentecostal, mainline and evangelical churches (hoping for some Catholic's soon), we are decidedly multi-ethnic and of both genders, we are even multi-national - we are all here.
I've heard people say it's important to invite others to the table...that is true for those in the institutional center...the ones with power....but for us on the fringes, we have to build our own table.
So, we're all here in NYC, and we are going to build the table together and sit at it. No one's inviting anyone to this table, we're building it together like the Amish. It's a barn raising.
So, come meet your Amish neighbors once a month at the Cohort if you live in NYC. You may need a barn one day.
Brian McLaren is often asked whether EC is just a conversation, or a movement. He says that he does not want to see it become a movement until all the parties are at the table - that we need to hear from the leaders of the churches in postcolonial countries and from more groups other than white suburban evangelical males in the US.
Well, here in NYC we are urban, we are from pentecostal, mainline and evangelical churches (hoping for some Catholic's soon), we are decidedly multi-ethnic and of both genders, we are even multi-national - we are all here.
I've heard people say it's important to invite others to the table...that is true for those in the institutional center...the ones with power....but for us on the fringes, we have to build our own table.
So, we're all here in NYC, and we are going to build the table together and sit at it. No one's inviting anyone to this table, we're building it together like the Amish. It's a barn raising.
So, come meet your Amish neighbors once a month at the Cohort if you live in NYC. You may need a barn one day.
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