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Emergent Church - Emergent Camp/Conf/Retreat Ministries?

Brian Frick

Lots of talk about relevance these days and "emergent Christianity."  Of course makes me think about where the Camp, Conference and Retreat ministries fit into this mix.  I just attended a seminar with Brian McLaren, a leading speaker, writer and practitioner of the Emerging Church movement, and just read "The Great Emergence" by Phyllis Tickle and if she is right (and I think she is) we are heading into, or actually in the midst of, a new defining of our church as we slowly adapt to the changes of the society around us.  This does not mean we let society lead and church is a reflection of that, it is more a realization that the world of today (with scientific discoveries, mass communications, individual transportation, massive choices in use of free time, spread out of families and other changes) leads us as a people of God to move into ways of expressing and sharing our faith that are "relevant' to us and others in these modern times.  The days of everything happening in the church on one day, or central gathering places with multi and hemogenous congregations are behind us and a new way of "being" church is crystalizing around us.  Just as during the reformation, there were many groups "experimenting" with ways to reach people in a time of political change and the advent of the printing press among other things, there are people "experimenting" today.  Some of those experiments during the reformation became a part of the current dominant Christian church (the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths) and others led to Protestant denominations and more Protestant denominations.
Tickle postulates that smaller, dispersed Christian groups will form and become more the norm, and that there will be more leaving the "church proper" and going into the neighborhoods to become relevant.  She states that we are looking for a new form of authority to guide us - for the reformation it was "Scripture first" because all could now have access and share that.  She does not believe we throw out Scripture but that there is a struggle to define what the source of shared authority for a new way of being Christian will be.
All of this is well and good but living in the midst of a reformation, or emergence or whatever we will call it is difficult because you don't know the end form or what we are becoming.  It is more being in the flow of a river with eddies and rapids flowing, diverging and converging and it is going to take us a long time to get to the lake or sea at the end of our journey.
So what do we do?  What signs of emergence do you see or would you like to see in our ministries?  I firmly believe that camp/conference/retreat ministries are more essential and flexible than ever and if we are brave and know who and whose we are - we will be places where emergence is fostered, strengthened and takes shape.
Some signs I see are Crestfield outside of Pittsburgh going out to Churches to do day camps instead of waiting for them to come to Crestfield - being aware of the needs of the Presbytery and the congregations and finding a new way to serve.  I see Calvin Crest in California and Ferncliff in Arkansas creating new training centers where missionaries can learn practical skills in water purification (Calvin Crest) or Solar installation (Ferncliff).  I see it at Pyoca in Indiana and Stony Point Center in NY where hydro-thermal (Pyoca) and tankless hot water heaters (Stony Point) are teachable examples of caring for God's Creation.  I see it in Johnsonburg in New Jersey where an organic garden is used as a teaching tool for learning where our food comes from and how to produce healthy, organic foods.  I see it at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico where Spirituality is being given the space and leadership to grow and evolve and planned wind, solar, and organic gardening are leading them into a faithful place of caring for God's creation.
What are you seeing?  What is your center doing?  How can we do more?
Einstein famously said, and I say this over and over that doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.  I don't think we are insane and the above are examples of faithful risk taking that will bear fruit and/or lead into new directions.  But many of our sites are insane by that definition.
How do we help sites that are doing more of the same to catch the fire?
God's Holy Spirit is moving.  I feel it...can you?  If you feel it, God is calling to us to move, respond and be a whole new people.
The gift of the Spirit was a new way for God to be with us as we lived into a new faith.
With Easter upon us and the celebration of the Resurrection urging us on to live as a people responding to Jesus' great sacrifice and leadership - now is a great time to pause in our busyness and ponder together what we are being called to be and faithfully taking that leap of faith into a brave new future.
I believe we will find that when we do - we will grow, be seen by our church as more relevant, be seen by our congregations as more relevant, and be seen by the larger world as more relevant and the benefits to our centers will be larger than we can imagine.
So what are you doing and what should we as a ministry of rest, reflection, and invigoration be doing to emerge into what the Spirit is leading us to be?

• Posted at 4:16 p.m.
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