i am paradox

Tim Keel

Wow, my head is spinning. I just finished up a class with Tim Keel called Reckoning with Intuition. It was way too much to take in, I will definately have to get the cd on this one. I will attach a copy of my notes. Make sure you catch his article in Leadership Journal called Naked in the pulpit . 

Download reckoning_with_intuitiona.doc

Tribe Church LA

Tribe Church of LA  will be leading worship at the main general session, the last one, tonight. Check out a sample mp3 here:

Download endures_45sec.mp3

And you can buy their cd here

I will blog about the session later tonight.

What the bleep ? ! ?

What the bleep do we know?  Chris Seay  has a class today called what the bleep do we know? Embarrassingly enough, I just thought it would be a class on that topic. We were running just a couple minutes behind from lunch at Casa de Pico , our favorite Mexican restaurant in Old Town, with world famous margaritas.  I tried attending the class, but it was more packed any other class I have seen in my 3 years attending here: people were sitting on the floor up front, standing in the back and even sitting in between the rows on the floor. Looking at the schedule, it looked as if the same class were being offered again after the first one, so I decided to wait. The schedule did say discussion next to the second class, but I assumed it was a misprint.

So after showing up half an hour early for what I thought was the next session, I overheard some people talking, and engaged them in conversation.  I soon discovered that What the bleep  is an independent film that is generating a lot of buzz.  So the first class watched the movie, then the second class discussed it. The good news is that it is being released on dvd in early March.



Now you know.

Band practice

So when walking around this afternoon after missing the Chris Seay class on What the bleep do we know, I ran across Tribe Church, who is leading the worship in Friday night's general session, doing a little early practice. They are amazing at getting other people involved, and did a fun, great job of this even when practicing outside.

Thursday recap

Ok, today is the last full day already, it's going by so quickly. Our group has done 3 of the learning community groups so far:humanity, church, truth. And in our opinion, that's not only the order of the schedule, but how well they ranked. When I say our group, I don't mean all 120 of us, but the 3 of us in our group. I hear the one we haven't yet had on Scriptures is great, with Grenz and McLaren, so looking forward to that today.

The humanity session was really indept and allowed for great conversation. The church one was ok, basically b/c no matter what the topic is, Doug P can make it interesting. He tried bringing 4 people from different types of churches up to get into the conversation, but it didn't go extremely well.

The truth session was kinda philosophy 101, and from our standpoint felt like we were all forced into an onramp class.

Something I didn't mention from the blogger's lunch yesterday were the t-shirts!  Jen Lemen  had one that read "I'm blogging this!" and Rachelle's read "God reads my blog".  I want both!  And if you haven't seen the shirt that Bob Carlton was wearing, swing by Desert Pastor 's recap of yesterday.

Blogger's lunch

Thursday was a great experience at lunch time. Almost 30 bloggers and aspiring bloggers attended a luncheon sponsered by the great Bob Carlton. He provided Papa John's Pizza and wings for all. Here is a sampling of just a few who were there, some of which are blogging live this week:

Jen Lemen

Dave Paisley

Spencer Burke

Rachelle

Karen Ward

Drew Goodmanson

Renee Altson

Holly Rankin Zaher

Chaya Martini

Sincere apologies to all who I left out!  We talked about some of the things everyone said not to talk about!  One of the most exciting was how in the blog world we tend to confuse personal attacks with criticism. Its one thing to disagree with someone, it's quite another to launch an all out personal assault.

That's all from now, hope everyone else is having as great a week not being here as we are here.

Wed. summary

Will do a longer summary later. It was a great day, especially sitting in a sesison about AIDS and the church's response with Spencer Burke. The Church of the Apostles led worship and did an amazing job of merging liturgy with media. I did an ok job of reading our rewritten version of psalm 134 and 67, which you can read at the bottom of this page. Chris has video of it on his site.

. Thanks for the picture Chris! 

One of our leaders (worship, youth, intern and all around fun guy) Brian Monroe is FINALLY blogging and you can follow his take on EC this week here:

Paradox Guitarist

Also, if you are reading this and happen to be in SD, drop by the blogger's lunch tomorrow. Here is a list of everyone that I know blogging, and will be continuing to update the list.

paradoxology

Bob Carlton

Doug P

Chrismc

Who else am I forgetting, it is late.  Here is the text of our blessing:

To the Emerging Church gathered in San Diego, a blessing; O God, look upon us, tattoo us with your kindness and grace. As one body, may we learn to follow you, that every culture on this earth will know without a doubt that you both heal and save. May we be so deeply moved by your blessings that we cannot remain silent. Despite our many cultures and differences, may we stand united, surrendering our lives to you, because your justice and fairness can be trusted. May we be so deeply moved by your blessings that we cannot remain silent.  With the eyes of faith, may we recognize that You have blessed us far more than we realize.  And may we never cease to honor You, regardless of where we are.
AND SO…
May we all come before the Lord and praise Him as servants, expressing our love for Him in the quiet that is the night. As we lift up our hands in the holiness of Your presence, may our lives and passion bless You, even as you have blessed us.

Amen.

Conversational Leadership

I am sitting in Dave Fleming's class on Conversational Leadership. It's totally great, I am definately getting the cd. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest. The title drew me in and it has definately been an answer to prayer. I have not been able to buy into the top town, business management/style model of leadership. And although I have heard about a more relational leadership, team approach, I haven't seen anything materialize. This is it. It's an Emergent approach to leadership.

Here is my abbreviated version of the notes.

And btw, they told us there would not be wi-fi available when we arrived here yesterday, but I decided to try it anyway and it works! I even have it in my classroom, which we didn't last year.

Download conversational_leadership.doc

Off to San Diego for Emergent Convention

Well, its almost time to leave for Emergent Conference 2005 in San Diego!  Next time I blog will be from the hotel!  Follow all the exiciting events here all this week.