progressive mission

it's my last morning in lancaster before heading off to canada to visit friends in paris, ontario and toronto...

the sessions seem to have gone fairly well. it's been my usual mix of teaching about mission, culture change, emerging church and alternative worship. what's been new for me is doing that in a seminary that identifies itself as progressive. i've not come across the term in the same way in the uk. it seems that no matter what your tradition or theological leanings, everyone is facing the challenge of what it means to be church in the emerging culture and what mission looks like. i have met leaders looking to transition existing churches, people starting new alternative worship stuff, people involved in missional communities and house churches and so on. if you are stopping by the blog for the first time hi!

i have been kindly hosted by bruce epperly whose area of interest is progressive spirituality and has written several books on the subject. i've got a couple to read on the way back... 

Comments

[bill]

While in Toronto, if you've got a couple of hours to spare, check out the Freeway cafe in in Hamilton. Pernell, the most tatooed emerging church guy in Canada, runs an interesting shop there. Too bad Winnipeg wasn't closer. Hope you have fun. here's his blog: http://www.pernellgoodyear.com/
bill

[jonbirch]

give my love to aad and jeanette! jx

[Tom]

Jonny, thanks for provoking us in new ways during your time at LTS. Hopefully, you'll let us know if the seminary makes your lectures available online. Peace to you.

[Tom]

This is an interesting link - innovative, informed and inclusive - are words that are developing within a particular strand of anglicanism at the moment which is particular prevalent in the Episcopal Church in the States - what one might call missional catholics. Within that very loose grouping I think the term "progressive" is being used increasingly - probably among people who would previously have been called "liberal" (say Affirming Catholicism etc) - more concerned with missio deo than with reforming the catholic end of the church. I would suggest that the interpretation of "inclusive" also leads to a spirituality which has a strong inter-faith dimension than has been apparent within a-c circles in the past.The weakness is of course is that there is little tradition of writing up ideas or forming groups or alliances - the emphasis is very much on personal practice so it is hard to assess how much of this is happening beyond the horizons of "people I know". There is perhaps a relationship

[James Knox]

Yes, enjoyed your talk in Lancaster, I was the guy from Pittsburgh who asked the question about our using a Fight Club clip with foul language in our church to illustrate a point.

I think that progressive as it is used in that link refers to a liberal "all ideas are right" kind of sensability. The Unitarian-Universalist church in the US falls into this "Progressive" category. But, when not one is wrong, is anyone right? The term progressive here does not refer to forward thinking about worship or how we do church, but in the ideas and theology of a movement of people involved in a group of denominations.

The point is there is one term being used, yet it has two different definitions.

[Michelle]

Welcome back to Canada. We met at the Morph Conference in Winnipeg a few years ago. We're having lovely spring weather in Ontario this week.