samgamgee

its taken a few days to find some time to update on the rest of the conversation we had at seismos?.   i’m grateful to joel daniel harris for following his heart and pulling together this conversation.  personally, i learn so much from these kind of gatherings.  17 folks….9 denominations…15 churches ~ big & little …traditional folks and contemporary too.  i’m not going to repeat the good work that joel daniel harris has put together (he’s the guy on the left with the mac on his lap).  he served us well as scribe facilitator.  you can read his posts here…

who we are
the questions we asked
inquiry and youthministry 1.0

for me the take away was more about asking larger questions about how we are doing things in our own context.  there was a great conversation about the issues we all face because of the cultural context we work in.  the economy, the state of the family, the fear of change, and even the fear of failure all helped to focus our attention on how the church is called to be the Light to the darkness.  i was grateful for being asked into the conversation.  one voice that i was able to offer was on the side of the practical…particularly the use of technology to better focus our efforts and results.  i’ll share that list later.

another observation for me comes from the reality that many of the issues we are pushing through in student minsitry are simply micros of the larger issue confronting the church along with the reality that we live in a day similar to the 1st century world.  the “religious” fears its loss of control and the uncertainity of allowing free and open conversation about where we go from here.