Thanks to everyone joining us in Ft Wayne at the Missional Learning Commons. It looks like we’ll be having a good turnout and I know I’m looking forward to seeing everybody – both new and old friends.
Again, this is a non-conference. Although there are four sessions on Saturday, the speakers will be short. We want to hear from each other. Come expecting to participate, tell us what you’re learning, ask questions, learn from other practicioners. We need coffee. We’re hoping to keep a steady brew of coffee going. So we’re asking people to come with some free trade coffee to share during the day. If you can afford it – and like to drink it – please bring some ground coffee to share – For all other munchies including lunch – we’re on our own.
Friday night – two professors from Northern Seminary ( me and Sam Hamstra) are leading a discussion on Soong Chan Rah’s book The Next Evangelicalism. We’re hoping to pull in other folk into a lively conversation. Here’s my take on Prof. Rah’s book here. If you’re coming Friday night, please come having read the book. We hope to have a serious engagement with the issues of race and diversity in missional church.
This non-conference is free. It is organic. It’s planned by seven people who met in a restaurant in Michigan City last summer. It has cost nothing to put on. It is meant to bring people together, encourage and enflame imagination for mission. For more information see the web page here, or the facebook page here.
Blessings and we’ll see you this weekend.
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Dave, it was a pleasure to see you again at the MLC. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the conversation, and I look forward to walking further down the road with you all.
One thing I thought about as I read the comments to your response to Rah’s book is it seems a bit curious to me that the one session in which we had non-white members of the presenting panel (and if my memory is correct, it was also the only one that had a female member) was the one specifically related to diversity and ethnic issues, white ethnocentrism in the missional movement, and so on. One of the commenters, whose name escapes me at the moment, talked about how we end up having un- and non-conferences and other gatherings that tend to turn into a bunch of white dudes talking about how white and male we are, and why that’s a problem – in a structure that ends up ironically propagating the problem with which we’re wrestling. The point was well-made, I thought. On the one hand, at least there were intentionally non-white and non-male presenters, but on the other hand the way in which they were made part of the program seems a bit tokenizing to me.
With that said, I don’t want my only comments on that issue to be negative. It is good that we have become more aware of the issue and more aware of the limitations and problems that occur when leadership is almost exclusively white and male. Also, it is clear from the discussion we had last weekend and the intentional engagement with people who are not white and male speaking from the platform that we are beginning to learn how to humble ourselves and hopefully hear God’s voice speaking from cultural perspectives to which we are not native. Change is happening, and it will be neither speedy nor painless. I just pray we will continue to be open to it, and humble to accept God’s correction even when it is frustrating.
By the way, the book I was trying to recommend to you was Power and Practices: Engaging the Work of John Howard Yoder, edited by Jeremy Bergen and Anthony Siegrist. Scottdale, PA.: Herald Press, 2009.
Are there any plans to put the non-conference videos(hope some where taped) on youtube, or expand them to other places like Cleveland, Ohio Hint, hint.
[...] event along with other missional practioners and leaders from the Midwest, Canada and East Coast. David Fitch will be there as one of the hosts, Ben Sternke will be there as well as a number of other people [...]