Emerging Africa

Or AfrikaBurn: Why the church should be there...

The 2nd regional Burn (Burning Man event) will take place between the 16th and the 19th October near the Tankwa Karoo National Park, Northern Cape, South Africa. Theme: Power.

Last years event was genuinely life changing for several of us. I want to spell out why this was, and to give a few reasons why "the church" - or Christians who care about mission, community, creativity, and the sacred - should be there. See the "testimonies" here, as well as some serious evangelical scholarship on Burning Man.

Last month (July 2008), evangelical Christian magazine Joy featured an article on the Emergent Church.

Graeme Codrington responded on his blog post called "Lies about truth", which I recommend, but I wanted to add my voice to his, because I think the general view as put out by publishers such as these are distinctly one sided. I feel full of hope and excitement at what the EC movement is bringing to us, and I can't watch those with the media say-so simply dominate the "debate".

Modernism: The predominant worldview of the 20th Century, comprising of:

1. The culmination of the Individual as Ideal, at the expense of Community.
   
2. A belief in "Progress": Man's indominitability and superiority in the Order of Things, as represented in his unsustainable exploitation of the Earth.
   
3. A faith in technology - abstraction from nature - to provide man's needs.
   
4. A hope in a final, universal, and therefore static, solution to mans problems.
   
5. A denial that the creative process is ongoing, and that we will forever be faced with the unknown.
   
6. An epistemology (theory of knowledge) based in rationality at the expense of emotional intelligence and intuition.

It seems that we have the unique opportunity of working within the creative and vibrant arena of Africa, with its mash of history and its full of beauty. It is within this context that I'm exploring the enormous challenge of bridge building between what we have always done as church and what will take us into the future world. What will bridge that gap is the question and what does that gap look like ? We have so many interesting recourses at our disposal and I would enjoy some conversation on the topic if anyone is interested in this ?

I am becoming aware of a tension between 2 strands of Emergence - the postcolonial and the postmodern.

This tension provides us not with a problem to be solved via a bosvergadering or an ecumenical council, as in politics, but rather an opportunity. I have been noting various grumbles from either "camp" towards the other; the postcolonials suggesting the postmoderns are theorists, out of touch with African issues, and the postmoderns suggesting that there is a good reason to theorise, deconstruct and analyse, as well as to take the lead of European philosophical and church movements.

We would like to find out if any one is doing anything in terms of charity work, hospitals, prisons, children, homeless, hungry etc etc.

Please, we are looking for practical things not discussion groups on whether we are post, pre, modern, past, modern, emerging, rediscovered, post toasties or whatever!!!!!

We would like to get involved but do not want to start anything new if it is already being done.

We are in Amanzimtoti so it must be down here (in paradise! :-)

Dunno if you can access my email so here it is:

popssfj [at] yahoo.co.uk

Cheers!

Pops

I've been a little scarce over the last few months or so. It's encouraging to meet people who track my online activity and want to know when I'm next writing something - it's easy to forget that I'm able to contribute helpful things and that I'm part of a larger conversation which more and more people are drawn to.

This weekend has also been really encouraging. Nieu Communities hosted a small conversation about what goes on with us in Pretoria North - how we are a particular expression of a way of following Jesus, and how we can journey together with friends, a number of whom joined us at Pangani.

‘“If you had one wish, what would it be?” Surrounded by the devastation of civil war and poverty, the woman looked down at the ground and then back up. She stared at me from my television screen and said, “I want my children to live in a different world. I long for a world I have never known.” I have never forgotten her words or the way she said them. She was dreaming of a new community.’

Yesterday I visited Nieu Communities and Roger Saner suggested a Pretoria Christian bloggers gathering. It struck me as a good idea -- it would be nice to meet face to face as well as reading each other's blogs. Perhaps we could widen it to Tshwane, to include people from places like Akasia, Soshanguve and Centurion.

Does anyone else in the area think it's a good idea? And if so when and where?

We could meet at someone's house, or for coffee at a coffee shop somewhere (Greenfields in Hatfield is a wireless hotspot, in case anyone can't bear the thought of being unplugged for an hour or two).

Today a group of 50 bloggers are blogging about the term "missional". A few South Africans are participating, and my contribution (with links to the others) may be found here.

In calling for a missional synchroblog Rick Meigs says: