congress on evangelism & the internet is our parish: day1

today started out with a nice quiet breakfast with revmom & rev abi, oh, jonathon was there too. we spent time catching up on our travels and other pleasantries. took a walk over to the convention area and checked in with jay & others. jay had been over to office max depot to get some some things to try and trick out our slow internet lounge. note: the lounge is not really slow if it is just one person, but the wi-fi in the hotel is super expensive for a day and not knowing how much use we would get we rigged up a system that bounces a signal that gets weak really quick when a lot of folks are using it.

jonathon and i bolted to meet up with the foundation for evangelism friends as we were getting recognized in the opening session. before all that we had a quick prayer with them and bishop scott jones before his opening denman lecture.

the opening session was very simple and very cool. nothing fancy, an opening song by wesley putnam. wesley wouldn't be my pick when looking for musicians, but i do like his song choices and the traditional hymn feel to his singing, even when they are not traditional hymns. after some announcements (and us getting recognized) mike rayson shared his song "just grace" which was way powerful. he sounds soooo much better live than his myspace recordings (which is what i listen to him with, maybe i should bone up and buy a cd??).

bishop scott jones gave a wonderful lecture on the needs of the church moving into today. he started with an opening video reading the same text in hebrew, latin, wycliff, kjv, rsv, nrsv, and the message with a progression of video technique. his opening remarks off the video were something to say, we are not the church of the 1st century, 1600's, 1950's, 1970's, and even 2001. maybe he should have used a version from "the voice."  i wish i had my computer with me to take notes, i know he said a couple of fabulous things and i just can't remember them all in full. funny enough, one of the points he made he told of his father having a photographic memory and remembering a certain woman some eight years later. while many of us cannot remember people we are just introduced too, because we "had no intention" of remembering. the link there is that we have to have intention in reaching out and sharing people Christ and making disciples of Christ through the church.

after the lecture it was workshop time. jay and theresa had their workshop on a theology and spirituality to blogging... it had a cooler name, but that was the premise we started with in crafting the workshop. knowing those two it was much more intensive. they had a packed room which made me excited. i must admit to having hesitations as to our numbers and people receiving us.

i moved up to see susan cox-johnson as she was doing a workshop on wesley and emergent church. after moving through post-modernism and the emergent church in 20 some minutes she got into her three wesley experiences that frame a methodist emergent approach. they went something like this

• wesley's experience with the moravians: simply put, we cannot come to understand completely  the emergent church and the postmodern culture by staying within our own denomination. we need to visit with and worship with other faith communities
• field preaching: this was something that wesley abhorred and hated that he did, but he knew that it was where the people were and thus, to make disciples of Christ he had to move out of the church and do something quite foreign and uncomfortable for him as a hands on ministry.
• ordaining coke & asbury: and sending them to the americas as bishops (superintendents) showed that he was visionary outside of what he considered institutional church. he never wanted to leave the church for a methodist church, but he gave permission for others to grow and move within this new movement. i liken an ideal like this to if the methodist church gave pastoral placements into situations where they are to work to create missional communities that might just last for 3-5 years, but during that time they spawn more missional communities or help to bring people into other churches. there is a permission given there that hold "success" in a very counter culture to our current placement success viewpoint.

after susan's workshop it was time for lunch and then jonathon and mine's workshop (which i've expanded on here). it went well. we had a great crowd, some great questions & people who seemed particularly interested. i hope we helped out some folks come to understand how to be in ministry with technology as a tool not to mention a few critiques.

once we got done with all that it was time to head to dinner, but not without some postmodern daily office. then off to check out one of the local churches featured children's ministry "the big house," which has helped this church grow exponentially as the children come and bring their parents. seems pretty logical, parents will go wherever their kids are happy, whether that is a soccer field or church.

"the big house" had some points to critique and uplift. funny part was how our little group differed and agreed on those parts. i am sure some of the others have pictures. i took a little video with my cell phone, but i don't have that converted at the moment. i have uploaded some more pics on my flickr if you care to see some other images.