As you can see from the photo above, today Karen Sloan and I had our seminar, entitled “Practice & Presbyterianism: Emergence as Reformation.” We began the seminar with a word-association activity: we asked everyone to think about what words or phrases came to mind when they thought of 1) Presbyterians, 2) Emergent and 3) Presbyterian Emergent (Presbymergent). Some of the answers we received were very interesting. Here are the lists:
Presbyterian
- Blue Hair
- Scottish heritage
- Antique Roadshow
- Discord
- Decent and in Order
- Order and Ardor
- Geneva Tabs
- Rich tradition
- Robert McAfee Brown
- Connectionalism
- Family
- Reformed & Always Being Reformed
Emergent
- Goatees
- Untucked Shirts
- Uncomfortable
- Risky
- Change
- Untidy
- Friends
- Incarnational
- Self-centered
- Young People
- Missional
- Organic
- Fresh
- New Growth
- Practice
- Forward
- Homogenous
- Arrogant
- Attitude
- Limited Geography
Presbymergent
- Oxymoron
- Reformed and Always Being Reformed
- Connectional
- Anti-Connectional
- Paradoxical
- Pragmatism
- Transformation
- Roots & Wings
- Old & New
- Embracing Polarities
- Ritual
It was very interesting to hear some of the thoughts of people in the room, especially with “Emergent.” Karen and I then shared some of our stories, I shared some about being loyal radicals and Karen then shared some case studies of PC(USA) churches who are interacting with Emergent Village and the emerging church movement in a variety of ways. I think it went pretty well, being the first time I ever led a “seminar/workshop” type thing in front of a large group. We had around 80 people at the seminar and many wanted to continue the conversation.
I think for many of the people in the room, their questions revolved around some of the Emergent worship practices and issues of Presbyterian polity. I had put together a handout (available here) that listed off some ways in which the Presbyterian Book of Order was actually more open to new ways of doing things than we may have previously thought. It also gave an example for an alt.worship service I led in the Princeton University Chapel that was organized according to the traditional Presbyterian order of worship.
Overall I think it was a good conversation starter, and I think many people will be continuing on with the conversation at presbymergent, which I hope continues to grow into more and more of a resource center and conversation hub for PC(USA)ers who are open to the Emergent conversation.
