just a few days ago, i finally got round to activating a blog for church of the apostles, seattle. it had been on my list of stuff to do, but being knee deep in my own blog transition from deepdirt to submergence, it got delayed, but now the COTA blog is up!
amber talbott (from apostles) and owner of minty fresh design re-mixed the look.
once the blog was up, another apostle (shawn dodd) posted a link to a blog post by tim bednar, on un-church, which i followed to find his *massive* post called 'we know more than our pastors,' a world view rocking post on emergence and the nature of the participatory, or as steve collins (and i prefer to say) the 'networked church.'
in the emerging/networked church, hierarchy is TRULY flattened. the priest/people divide is gone. in the emerging paradigm, it is the people/body/network who mostly knows best!. yet this is not just new fangled thought, but biblical thought... as the holy spirit promised to 'lead the church into truth,' not lead pastors into truth, or even our beloved bishops into truth, but the church. -'IT'S THE NETWORK/THE BODY' - (no need to say stupid, eh?)
my people know more than me... and i love it! as this is the most freeing way to be/do church. i want to let this out of the bag to trad/modern pastors who are weighed down with the crushing burden of 'running' churches.. so to you all, i say 'it is okay, risk a bit to give this up, even a little at a time... even in small pieces... you will NOT lose 'authority' (as long as the authority you exercise is steeped in the gospel/kingdom) but you WILL lose control (to be truthful, we pastors never had control anyway, so go and flow with it... as 'it' is called 'holy spirit ' and the spirit is the real leader of the church. this is (as luther said a long time ago) the 'priesthood of believers,' but not as modern church rhetoric, but emerging reality.
my people are smarter than me. but i'm smart also ;-) smart enough to post apostles a blog (without them having to start one despite and around me in order to speak god's mind in them). trump! ;-)
i urge trad. pastors/priests (seeking to enter control recovery)- to READ THE BLOG POST 'we are smarter than our pastors' and also note the section on apple garageband, the new music software that is a model of emerging church.
in garageband (and the EC), the people shift from being consumers of church to producers of church. this is what postmoderns crave, access to the 'means of production.' so rock on, emerge and jam *alongside* your people. begin by reading tim bednar's post (below) and then go on to read more about networked church from steve collins.
exerps from We Know More Than Our Pastors (blog post by Tim Bednar)
The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that spiritual bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures, denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity. We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important. In this, we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real, authentic lives and not by choice. But they are distanced by traditional church structures. We genuinely believe that we have something to more to offer than what the church is structured to receive.
With the explosion of easy-to-use “blogware”, we are able to circumvent traditional structures, publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire. It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled. In fact, we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice. We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do. We feel we have every right to participate. In an interview for his book Emergence, Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis, “the whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its parts.” This is why I believe that spiritual bloggers know more than their pastors.
In the process of blogging, we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter, more responsive and more creative that our churches, pastors and denominations. Michael Boyink reinterprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto, “People in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches].
Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ. Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church.
* Conversations are all around us. Christianity is one of many.
* Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include, but are not limited to Christianity. We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition, church, pastor or denomination. We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional church hierarchy.
* Every Christian is a creator. We no longer have to wait for church authorization to act or speak in the name of Christ.
read the rest here
and get more goods on networked church from steve collins here
the postmodern culture shift is real and is emerging in culture and church simultaneously.
worship went well yesterday. it was a true multi-cultural potluck worship feast in the name of christ. we had a teen aged (and mostly anglo) gospel choir from seattle pacific university singing old style gospel, while jay (a twenty something black male dj) spun up 'straight outta detroit' gospel house on the decks (turntables). 
i'm trying to get blogging again. i may have forgotten how... so i need to just post to get practiced again, and i'm still learning this new typepad system
