Everything Must Change

It's true, it's the name of a book, and the name of a traveling event. Starting in a few weeks, Brian Mclaren and his team will be hitting the road across America to talk about the future. In eleven cities as diverse as New York, New York and Goshen, Indiana...Boise, Idaho and St. Petersburg, Florida a weekend carnival of new ideas and music and art and most importantly new friendships will delight and inspire those gathered.

Since September I've been working behind the scenes to coordinate the involvement of Emergent Village Cohorts across the tour route to join up with the tour when it comes to their region. We've got a host of activities to bring together our various cohorts at the tour to further connect with each other, get some training, have some dialog and of course enjoy all the tour has to offer.

One of the things I've been working on is a three minute video of Emergent Village, with a focus on the cohorts to be shown at all eleven cities. The video is coming together really well, cohorts are sending in footage they've shot on their cellphones and digicams and we've found some great filmmakers in the Bay area to edit it well for us - the whole thing with a budget of zero.

I'll be speaking about the cohorts after the video and we'll have sign-up tables for people who'd like to find a cohort in their city or start a new one, and we'll be able to train them right on the spot that weekend. Working over the last few years with the cohorts, I have seen time and again the hope that people receive in being able to talk about all this new stuff and meet fellow journeyers at the cohorts. A big motivation for my involvement in the emerging church in general and Emergent Village in particular has been my concern for and fascination with watching people make this transition from being terribly discouraged about the church, embarassed or hurt or really badly burned or intellectually offended to discovering hope again by finding that there is a whole group of people who've been there and know how lost the church has become and are humbly and enthusiastically journeying together toward some new thing that is ahead.

I think this tour is going to be a big moment in the history of whatever it is that's happening.