northwest

Quaker Emergent Church Planting

Martin Kelley — Tue, 04 May 2004 14:24:06 +0000

Over on the Evangelical side of Friends is “Simple Churches”:www.simplechurches.net, a movement of “organic” church planting. It’s a project of Harold and Wendy Behr, recorded by Northwest Yearly Meeting and now working with Evangelical Friends Church Southwest. The core values are ones I could certainly sign off on: Leadership over Location, Ministry over Money, Converts over Christians, Disciples over Decisions, People over Property, Spirit over Self, His Kingdom over Ours. I particularly like their site’s disclaimer:
bq. As your peruse the links from this site please recognize that the Truth reflected in essays are often written with a “prophetic edge”, that is sharp, non compromising and sometimes radical perspective. We believe Truth can be received without “cursing the darkness” and encourage you to reflect upon finding the “candle” to light, personally, as you apply what you hear the Lord speaking to you. In Body life, often the most powerful opponent of the “best” is the “good”.
They’re leading a conference next month in Richmond, Indiana, with members of Friends United Meeting. How tempting is this?

h3. See also:
* “Emergent Church Movement: The Younger Evangelicals and Quaker Renewal”:/Quaker/emerging_church.php

Evangelical Friend’s Take on the Postmodern Church

Martin Kelley — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 19:59:23 +0000

I’ve long been curious about whether anyone in the Evangelical branch of Friends has been following the “emergent church” movement. Now I find that Bruce Bishop , former Youth Superintendent of Northwest Yearly Meetings, has written a primer called Postmodernism: Taste and See that the Lord Is Good
bq. “Postmodernism”–we see that label bandied about quite a bit these days. And like the once-frequent phrase “Generation X,” postmodernism is often seen as anti-Christian and something that the church needs to fight. I would beg to differ.
I don’t particularly like the term “postmodern,” as the philosophical and pop-culture definitions almost completely contradict one another, but he’s talking philosophy, so MTV watchers should listen past the words. (Bishop is in good company in his continued use in the term: “Here’s Jordan Cooper”:http://www.jordoncooper.com/2004_03_01_archives.html#107896665936703076 and “Brian McLaren”:http://www.emergentvillage.com/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=797 talking about the problems with the term and their explanations of why they’re still using it).
I really _really_ hope Bruce Bishop writes a follow-up addressing how Friends might relate to this movement (“see my thoughts here”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/emerging_church.php).

North by Northwest

Martin Kelley — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 08:45:41 +0000

One of the joys of the web is that you can think you’ve seen everything and then suddenly stumble across something new. This happened to me this morning with “West by Northwest”:westbynorthwest.org, a great web-only publication focused on progressive issues in the Pacific Northwest. Organized as a ecumenical project by area Quakers, it’s a journal of “arts & letters, ecology, and peace & social justice.” I especially recommend their “Voices of Peace”:http://westbynorthwest.org/artman/publish/peace.shtml selection.