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becky

Jonny -

Excellent thoughts - what I find here in the US is the emergence of what I'd term conformist anarchy - a rebellion against the institution that ends up looking like a cooler, younger, pomo model but unpack the persona and it's all the same - and once again, those who don't fit the new missional mold end up still not fitting in with no where to go. I re-read Mike Yaconelli a bit for the book I'm writing now and his thoughts on not fitting in gave me some much needed faith fuel.

We need to keep encouraging singular voices to do their thing and help them to resist the pressures that come by those who will try to market them as "the next emergent sensation" or whatever postmodern packaging they think will bring in the bucks. What's telling is this strategy seems to be backfiring - The era of the one man religious rock star show seems to be on the way out based on book sales etc. So I'm hoping the white noise can die down and many more dialogues like the one you had in Oklahoma will continue to happen.

matybigfro

mnn i wonder how we create space that help those who don't fit survive not fitting

without creating the new uber cool pack they everyone wants to get in on and then ruin

but also without creating super tight cliches where many other hurting outsides feel as not fitting in as the main stream

pamhogeweide

i jonny, i've seen you around the blogosphere, not sure where, but finally i made it by your corner. great post, it resonates loudly with me. as a member of a faith community here in Portland called The Bridge, we are perhaps the loudest and rowdiest jalopy-gospel church in our region. And we absoeffinlutely don't fit in. But we're not meant to, and I revel in that. I revel in the energy of being a part of a unique expression of the body of Christ.

And i love that MacLuhan quote. i have it printed up on my wall in front of my writing desk.

all the best...

(h/t to becky!)

Caroline Too

For most of the 17 years that I've taught in university business schools I've not fitted in. What I've taught - talk, conversation and improvisation - hasn't fitted into a rational manager's curriculum and the way I've helped people learn hasn't fitted with my colleagues, who have all been experts with much knowledge to transfer to our students ... I haven't fitted in so I've had to work incredibly hard to work in a way that satisfied me and avoided being hounded too often by my managers.

Things are changing... the ideas that I've espoused for several years are starting to be picked up by my colleagues. It's incredibly exciting but

the mainstream is catching up with me... I'm becoming mainstream... a friend asked me the other day, how I was going to cope with that...

it was a strangely uncomfortable questiion to answer.

Nathan

Hey Jonny,
I appreciate your reflections on your time here in OK, on that thought in particular, and I'm glad you had the opportunity to come.
Godspeed on your journey home--and hope you enjoy being here for another day.

cheryl

'you don't fit and that's your gift'

what an incredibly liberating thing to be told.

this post was a very good thing to read today, thanks.

Martin Poole

What worries me about Fresh Expressions in the Church of England and the idea of pioneer ministry as it's developing is that a lot of the messaging that comes from the church feels like trying to find ways to make people conform to a church way of doing things rather than giving people the freedom to belong without fitting in. I'm struck by how much of the definition of a fresh expression as set out by the national team is to do with membership, worship, services, congregations, parishes, sacraments etc. I worry that the institutional church is in danger of stifling the very movement that is trying to bring life and modern context to those of faith who want to find a new way to do things.

jonbirch

aah, i remember you coming back from that cup of coffee all those moons ago... and it really was surprising.
amazingly, i was told exactly the same thing by the parish priest who ran harn hill. i too was liberated, i have been positively affected by his words ever since.
the square peg in the round hole analogy springs to mind... but i can't help thinking my square peg would easily go in if the round hole were large enough. but it isn't... and i guess until it is i will always be found on the edge. hmmmm.

becky

Jon - the fun thing about the edge though is I get to drink beer with people like you. I got to events as press where people fit in and it bores the daylights out of me. Fine for them if they're happy but I'm bored to tears.

Robb

I am strangely reminded of a t-shirt I owned as a teenager....

"If you're not living on the edge you are taking up too much space. No Fear"

Jonas

Oh, I don't know...

I don't completely disagree but it seems that perhaps we are missing a vital part.

Shouldn't we let the master craftsman decide the utility of the peg and the hole and modify, one or the other, according to His Plan so that His finished product jointly fits together?

Just thinking aloud...

northern girl in the south

I'm very very late coming to join this particular party, but am very blessed by what I've read here. I just moved church after 14 years of feeling really uncomfortable and genuinely wondering what was wrong with me. I stayed because I thought it could bring a little bit of helpful change, but I don't think it has, and it was at a high cost. We are also a generation who find the contraints of institution tough I think, many of us are freewheelers and churches are afraid of that.

I'm exploring Pioneer ministry at the moment so the comment above was very interesting.

Thanks, and I'll look forward to reading more now I've pitched up.

Tiggy

I think it is actually harder for a woman not fitting in because women are expected to fit in even more than men are. It's so easy to be crushed by disapproval and maybe when men get angry at that, women get upset and cry - well I do. I get angry too, but angry women aren't taken seriously.

Thank God for the Internet that allows me to sometimes make my views known in writing rather than having to see people's looks of discomfort and waryness when I don't toe the line. Today I was able to speak out on my church's website about how despicable a man was whom they invited to speak there and it turns out I wasn't the only one to feel that way. In the same way as the Net has facilitated uprising and revolution in politically oppressed countries, it allows us to be more subversive and revolutionary in what is often an oppressive environment - the Christian Church.

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