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.

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 can't help noticing that the previous 2 heartfelt postings, "What does it mean to truly love God?" by Annalisa and "Original Sin and The Sinful Nature : Sex, Sexuality and Homosexuality" by Stray have not attracted any comments. Also comments made in the past months have not engendered much response.

I wanted to say something, because I felt that both Annalisa and Stray really put their hearts out there, and I just wanted to thank them for doing so.

Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways, will visit South Africa in May 2008. Here is his schedule:

19th May 2008 Stellenbosch - 1 Day conference with Communitas - contact Frederick Marais: jfm [at] sun.ac.za
20th May 2008 Pretoria - Evening with Alan Hirsch - contact Marius Nel: marius-nel [at] lantic.net
22&23 May 200 Krugerdorp - 2 day retreat and workshop (max. 60 people) - contact Nelus Niemandt nelus [at] pixie.co.za

More details to follow.

I tune in here every few days. It's been quiet recently, apart from the cherubim "EXqCFpzPqHZp" and the seraphim "vqtQxmZcwABqspGz" but there are a few new names coming up and the curator in me can't help but wonder what's happening.

For all those who are trying to connect, looking for a new approach to spirituality, especially in South Africa, don't give up hope, just because a website appears stagnant. There IS a new thing happening, I am convinced of it. You may feel heretical, you may feel isolated, but lets use the tool given us - the internet - to connect "offline" (by which I mean "online", just so we are all equally confused) while we seek out community in our locales.

20 February 2008.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be a christian with an emerging theology. Alot of things depend on church affiliation.

If you can, get hold of a book called "Chaos" by James Gleick. It's a history of the development of chaos theory, and reads like what the history of the emerging church will be.

A photomarathon is a full day of taking photographs on particular topics. The emphasis is on fun and creativity, and anybody can participate - all you need is a digital camera.

On Nov 3rd, we'll meet at Bryanston Bible Church at 8:30am where we'll have a short introduction to the theme, "Heaven in Ordinary." Heaven can be thought of as an "out there" concept but we want to explore (through photographs) how heaven can break into the daily ordinariness of life in Jozi. There will be 12 topics (given out 4 at a time, at 9am, 1pm and 5pm) for the day and although you can shoot as many pics as you want under each topic, you can only submit a single entry - so at the end of the day you'll hand in 12 photographs.

In 2001 I visited a missionary in Paraguay who was doing some tremendously interesting things in a little town in Paraguay. This missionary worked as a vet and through his work made friends with local people in and around the town. He developed friendships with some and they became interested in the Bible. They started reading the Bible together on an irregular basis. After some time these new friends asked Dave if they couldn't start reading the Bible together on a more regular basis. As they read through the New Testament they started asking Dave if they couldn't start a church and what should it look like. Dave's response in every case was that they should decide based on what they read in the Bible and what they thought would be the right thing to do.

A friend of mine asked me if I remembered his uncle Johnie, "yip why?" was
my reply, the following story unfolded (I have changed names to keep it in
the family):

Well 2 months ago a young lady called his house looking for him, he was'nt
in so the lady said she would call again. She did and after confirming his
identity, gave him the following news "My name is Jane, I'm 34 years old and
I'm your daughter. (the youngest child with his wife is 42 years old).....

It appears that Johnie had jumped the fence in his 30's and had never known
that there had been such consequences...

The lady whom he had been unfaithful with had decided to put the result of
their affair up for adoption to a childless couple. Jane had only recently