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Methodism

the future of church : a green life returns to what we knew

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Ways-to-live-a-green-life-748871 

a few weeks back i was in a conversation where we were talking about the future of the church. i made some statement, not slamming the megachurch, but being less than kind to the megachurch as the future of church. which, i am prone to do.

one of the people just happened to be a part of the staff at one of the biggest megachurches, that i will leave unnamed (haha!). and he offered his view. he shared that he felt that the future church will look like megachurches and house churches.. hmmm..

now i pondered that. it most certainly could be the case. people seem to embrace the large corporation securities/offerings or they go against the grain in some anti-establishment stance, which could bring about that dynamic. but i don't know if corporation is the future (and lets be honest, the megachurch is a corporation) of the life of the person.

what i got to thinking about was the inclination people are having to live the 'green' lifestyle. it is just now becoming a norm and part of peoples daily practices. so as families develop with young adults that have grown up being 'green' what are some of their behaviors that might shape they way they participate in church life?

we are already seeing that people are not too worried about their church denomination loyalites. the economics are poor in large global corporate climate, which was otherwise safe & secure 5 years ago.

so these three things, 1. green living 2. falling denomination loyalty 3. an unsecure corporate economic will lead to resurgence of parish life.

people, conscious of their impact will doing old school transportation, walking to & from the markets/cafe/stores. because people cannot blindly count on corporations for their economic securities there will be a move back to small business (which i hope government taxes make easier, or less taxking, to do) bringing up local entrepreneurship, and finanicial control back to the individual, that we have not seen in 50+ years. people will move back into those houses of worship that were abandoned by a church denomination, or are a dieing congregation, in their neighborhoods and reshape them to what is core to their local needs.

when will this happen? maybe 20-30 years or so from now. there will be that generation shift where the older folks who have grown up with behaviors of driving all over God's green earth to get what they need are not the norm. they will be replaced by children of my family who have grown up living simply, using canvas bags for daily grocery pick up, walking to schools, riding a bike to the post office, knowing who all is in your neighborhood (instead of driving in and driving out).

will this replace what we currently know? not completely. just as the corporation will never leave us the megachurch will never leave either. but it will become less a significant voice in our day to day lives. there will be nothing to be enamored about as people lives will have become reoriented towards a parish life. house churches i don't see as being a norm, but being the new 'satalite' campuses of the parish church, which isn't such a new idea at all.

in the future, we will see parish life return.. will we, our denominations, be ready or will we have moved out our stakes?

chime in? agree/disagree? thoughts? am i crazy?

look back into the past : the things that were about this time years ago

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in my on going toss out of lifting up some of the archives of this blog from similar time period over the years.

online disciple : experiment in being a facilitator

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many of you, my faithful readers know that community can happen over the bits & bytes of the internet. the folks behind the disciple study series are seeking to cultivate some disciple communities that will study and grow together. they are currently looking to fill out their facilitator list if you are interested visit the site and drop your name into the hat. tell them i sent ya & they might still let you in. haha! shalom, -gav


DISCIPLE Bible Study — Online

Do you have persons in your congregation who are missing out on the
transforming power of DISCIPLE because of their schedules? Do you have some
whose travel keeps them from committing to a weekly class meeting? Do you have
some who might like to take DISCIPLE with others who have a similar life
experience?

The Richard and Julia Wilke Institute for Discipleship is excited to
offer Disciple Bible Study — now online at BeADisciple.com.

Here is how it works. Persons simply go to www.BeADisciple.com and enroll in the
Disciple Online class they wish to join. A $30 fee is required to
underwrite the costs of nine months of technical support. Next, participants
will need a manual which they can purchase online from the Cokesbury site or
through their local church. High speed internet connection is recommended.

Disciple Online may be offered to groups of 12 within a
congregation. A few members of a congregation in one state may join together to
study Disciple with a few from another state or even another country. Or
individuals may enroll in Disciple Online with other individuals from
anywhere.

Disciple Online will be presented in a standardized format. Each
group will need a facilitator to watch over the sessions and to encourage
participation. The facilitator will remain “a learner among learners." In
addition to Disciple facilitator training, online facilitators will need to
complete the online workshop “How to Become a Disciple Online Facilitator ” prior to
leading a group. This workshop will be offered periodically at BeADisciple.com
for $50.

Participants will do their daily reading and reflection with their manual on
their own. Participants may enter their daily scripture notes in the online
workshop environment if they choose, and assignments will be available with
instructions for weekly group work. This will include discussion questions to be
completed in a group-interactive discussion board by the participant at his/her
own convenience. Prayer requests and written prayer petitions will be included.
This online work covers what is normally accomplished in the first half of a
normal face-to-face DISCIPLE class.

 Each week, a short review of the week's scriptures by Bishop Wilke, the
author of DISCIPLE, will be presented online for participants to watch. These
will lead into key questions for weekly discussion.

 The class schedule will be determined by the group facilitator. Every seven
days the facilitator will conduct a live session online (approximately one hour)
which walks the group through more discussion, exercises, and time for prayer
together. This section will be conducted similarly to the second half of a
face-to-face class and will transition the group into the next week. Each
session will be recorded so that participants who have to miss a live session
may view the live session later.

 Disciple Online will use the DISCIPLE (Becoming Disciples Through
Bible Study) participant manual and facilitators guide but not the UM Publishing
House DVDS/videos which normally accompany the study. Participants are
encouraged to gain access to these materials through their local church or
through Cokesbury.

If you have any questions, or would like to provide some input into the
development of Disciple Online, please email Lisa at beadisciple@sckans.edu.

 Bishop Wilke — A message
regarding Disciple Online

 Information for
potential Disciple Online facilitators

thoughts on a experiement : social media & the methodist

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updated: blake huggins has some thoughts to add & i, as seems customary, have comment

kevin watson, proposed a little experiment to the metho-blogosphere after i made posting on how our general agencies just don't get how to use social media. he has posted his observed results and some opinions about the experiment.

I was surprised that more than 25 bloggers linked to the video in some
way on their blog. And I do think it is significant that simply passing
on a video was able to revive a video that was basically dead on
YouTube. A change from 44 views in 6 months to 715 views in 2 weeks is
a significant change. I think that this experiment does show that there
exists a significant group of Methodists who are willing to work
together in some capacity to raise awareness and get the word out. The
big question is: Get the word out about what?

i had some thoughts on the results, not to mention my idea of how general agencies need to target their mild marketing efforts.

like i mentioned to you earlier kevin. the next step would be to
spread it around through people’s email lists. email is going to tap
more of the mainstream folks versus the early adopts of the blog world.

some numbers can be low because we share information amongst
ourselves. i had already seen the video so i wasn’t going to watch 25
times because 25 of my friends posted it. i also am not sure if the
embed watching shows up in the views on youtube or that is just a ‘hit’
to that page. that would also keep numbers rather low as most folks
embedded the video. i know i did that.

certainly the video didn’t go viral, but i don’t know if it has
elements to that seem to be ingrained in a viral video. something that
is familiar, humorous or heart tugging. the old gene cotton claymation
clay ride history of methodism got a lot of traffic, until umcom told
me to take it down, as people had some kindred tie to it. it was a good
video, but for many it was more nostalgic to the soul. who knows how
well that video would be doing now. i have some news story on the
patriot guard, and westboro baptist, that seems to get a comment or two
and a hundred or so views a day.

though the experiment didn’t go viral that isn’t the measure. the
measure is that it is talked about and people are more aware of
‘reclaiming wesleyan tradition’ now. which, they might not have been
before.

some thoughts

as for kevin's observation that views dropped after the 2nd week.. well, it wasn't the kind of video that so many people kept going back too to show off or laugh at again. months later i still go back and laugh at the nashville gas crisis (though it isn't as funny as it was that week).

what are your thoughts?

a band by any other name : wind farming

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2007-260-wind-farm

the good bishop schnay-z whom i got to hang with the other night had some really nice thoughts on connection from our evening conversations. much more well spoken than my bullet list. one thing that i found interesting, and i quite like it, is he called jay & myself 'wind farmers' for some of our work with the methoblog. jay thinks itd be a great band name.. i'm just glad the bishop isn't from tennessee as we don't have much wind farming in tennessee.. itd be more like coal ash mush shovelers.