The Valley

we've moved

2008-01-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

http://neo-paganchristian.blogspot.com

take a look at what's happening.

http://neo-paganchristian.blogspot.com

Thanks,

Tom

http://portlandcohort.blogspot.com/

2007-02-23T08:33:00.000-08:00

http://portlandcohort.blogspot.com

check it out!

an emerging- emergent group

2007-01-26T08:53:00.000-08:00

For all those who were disappointed by my calling the meetings quits, something new is appearing on the horizon...

Some folks in Portland would like to start up the meeting again, sketchy details are coming in slowly...

They are going to try to meet the last Fridays at 7:30pm
starting in Febuary at
Common Grounds Coffee House
4321 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, OR 97215-3162

Keep your ears to the ground for more.

No more monthly meetings

2006-12-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

I've made a decision to cancel the monthly first Thursday meetings. I think it was a good idea and I met a few interesting folks, but I don't have the energy to make it what I'd like it to be.

I'll keep the blog going and comments are always welcome.

I've connected with a few folks in the Portland area that are discussing there experiences on the "emerging edge" of Christian faith. This was my original intent in starting this blog. To find a few friends that are wanting to explore this whole "emergent" idea. I've done that.

Some of the folks I've met recently are involved in "enterbeing" in Portland ( www.enterbeing.org ). This is an intriguing place for me, yet it is personally controversial. The controversy for me is this idea of creating a safe place for people of all faiths to gather and exchange stories and ideas. This goes against my culture of arguing with people of other faiths rather than sharing similarities. If not arguing then making significant attempts to convert them. This place is different. People of different faiths come together. I guess what the controversy for me is, is there a compromise to come together? Does this mean that each faith is equally valid?

cut n paste from secondtimothytwo.blogspot.com

2006-12-03T19:46:00.000-08:00

TWO DIFFERENT SETS OF VALUES:
IMA and ADH

IMA

I NCARNATIONAL An incarnational community cooperatively goes into cultures that already exist, and become like them to reach them. They believe that God is already present in these cultures and therefore, their role as missionaries is not to bring God into that group, or take that group out of the culture into a sacred space, but they help others to see how God is already working in and around them in the ordinary as well as the miraculous.
M ESSIANIC A messianic community sees God's hand in the ordinary situations of life. They are able to see and understand the prevenient grace of God at work in places that have not been reached by the church. Rather than relying on programs and services to proclaim the gospel, they are able to show the gospel lived out in their ordinary lives and in ordinary situations. People then see a spirituality that is wholistic, meaningful, and relevant to their yearnings for an almighty God that meets them where they are at and a church that meets them in the same way- where they are, as they are.
A POSTOLIC An apostolic community recognizes the responsibility that each believer has been given to play a role in the kingdom. Each member is a leader. As each member is living by the two-fold practice of LISTEN & OBEY, they are simultaneously learning how to feed themselves spiritually and be accountable and communal. They therefore, become less reliant on community for spiritual nurishment, while choosing to be involved in community out of obedience, love, accountability, friendship, worship, wisdom, and co-laborship. The apostolic community typically shares a common set of "missionary practices." These are spiritual disciplines that provide common ground for the community as well as a means for the members of the community to LISTEN & OBEY. As the members of the community gather, these lifestyle disciplines provide an informal litergy for the community, with much to share, and much reason to worship the Lord together.

ADH

A TTRACTIONAL An attractional community seeks to create a spiritually comfortable and sanctified place within a culture that can serve as the community's hub. They then attempt to invite people into this space, with the hopes of extracting them out of their old community and transplanting them into the new christian community. The focus is on providing alternative 3rd places so that people can meet new friends, and find new clubs, and new activities to be involved with during the week. This type of community is also sometimes referred to as "EXTRACTIONAL."
D UALISTIC A dualistic community sees the world as divided between the sacred and the ordinary. Although God is in both places, we are expected to encounter him more fully and deeply in the sacred spaces than in the ordinary. This is because sacred spaces are designed for an encounter with God. Through the use of architecture, lighting, artwork, alters, cerimonies, music, etc... these spaces are also protected against unnecessary distractions or possible stumbling blocks that could hinder someone from making a connection with God or with another believer in fellowship.
H IERARCHICAL A hierarchical community is a community that is characterized by the seperation of clergy and laity. The laity entrust the work of the kingdom to the few qualified leaders, who then provide vision for the laity and the steps necessary to achieve that vision. The clergy (or staff) provide services to the laity which include: the sacred space to meet, a vision for the community's role in the Kingdom, teaching (in the form of a sunday message, and often classes offered during the week), small group coordination and management, mission trips, counciling, etc...

Donald Miller Fan

2006-11-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to another interesting blog.

http://secondtimothytwo.blogspot.com/index.html

You'll find a Donald Miller reading and an interview. If your short on time I particularly like about 47 minutes into the interview. He gets to the idea of communicating in narrative rather than the rational three point sermons so many of us are familiar with.

Let me know if you all are finding interesting links?

Thanks!

Chickified...

2006-11-17T08:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Missional Jerry http://becomingmissional.blogspot.com/ I found some videos with Mark Driscoll. I think Mark is the pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle. I found his videos to be confident (if not arrogant), and potentially unnecessarily pro-man or anti-"chick". What do you think? Is this a cultural backlash to the "chickification" of the church? He says in the video that most churches are designed for 30-40 something women, and that leaves many men behind. I agree with that. However, it seems his answer is to focus on young adult, innovative males. He said something like, "If you get them, you win, you get the whole package." I like the idea of being open and encouraging innovators, but I don't know about narrowing the portal demographically to only young men. That seems kind of like old school evangelical again, the the 1950's again, but this time instead of a crew cut it's a Mohawk.

missional

2006-11-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

I was considering this blog and whatever it means or could be. I don’t want a new traditional church with Sunday worship services. I was wondering what am I still trying to get at with my questions? The integration of faith into everyday life and the practical outpouring of that integration is something I don't really own, but I want it. I’m not sure exactly how that looks. Is my life integrated…? I don’t know how honest I am. However I know I value honesty and authenticity. Rather than directly attempt to answer my own questions I poked around on the web and came across http://www.friendofmissional.org/ I'd never seen this site before. I liked it... The following was taken from the friend of missional site:

"This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, "Breaking the Missional Code" (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:
• From programs to processes
• From demographics to discernment
• From models to missions
• From attractional to incarnational
• From uniformity to diversity
• From professional to passionate
• From seating to sending
• From decisions to disciples
• From additional to exponential
• From monuments to movements
Making this shift can be difficult for many (particularly Evangelical Americans), but to fully appreciate what the missional church is, we must look outside of our traditional understanding of how we do church and realign ourselves with the biblical narrative."

Here is a question I hope thousands will respond to. (OK maybe not thousands) Please post a comment if you have seen examples of any of the above taking place, in Salem? Oregon? Anywhere?

Thanks,

Tom

cloning

2006-11-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday at the Ike Box I had a question that I didn’t quite know how to ask. It might be my personal aversion or misunderstanding of evangelism; or maybe it is a blind acceptance of diversity in whatever form encouraged. I’ve been at churches where they have pastors of assimilation. I do recognize the Christian gospel provides a good that is worth sharing.

The following selections speak to this topic of assimilation and diversity. Some questions that I have are: Is it possible to maintain Christian or spiritual integrity while at the same time appreciating cultural or theological differences within our Christian faith? Is it possible to appreciate or find value in the diversity of cultures of faiths that appear to contradict the Christian culture or faith?

From wikipedia

“Cultural assimilation, or 'assimilation' for short (but that word also had other meanings), is an intense process of consistent integration whereby members of an ethno-cultural group, typically immigrants, or other minority groups, are "absorbed" into an established, generally larger community. This presumes a loss of all or many characteristics which make the newcomers different. A region or society where assimilation is occurring is sometimes referred to as a "melting pot."”

…and…

From Meaningful Diversity: A Culture of Religious Pluralism by David W. Machacek

“First, it is possible that public life has become so secularized that religion simply doesn’t matter. That is, as long as accountants can count, teachers can teach, carpenters can build, and politicians can dance the Texas side-step, their religious beliefs don’t really make any difference. One way to make pluralism possible is to relegate religion to the realm of private life, making it inconsequential to the public realm. This has happened to some degree, no doubt, but… religion often makes a big difference in public affairs. In fact,… most Americans, tend to think that religion ought to have a voice in public affairs, that religion has a positive influence on public life (Farkas, et al., 2001; see also Orr, Miller, Roof, and Melton, 1994).….

“A third possible institutional response to religious diversity deserves mention, although it hardly merits the name of “pluralism” in the sense in which I use that term here. That is, to give a particular religion a privileged place in public institutions and to treat adherents of other faiths as second-class citizens….

“But there is a fourth possibility,… to promote a civic culture that holds religious diversity to be a positive good and to develop institutions that express this value in practice…”

What Next?

2006-10-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you were at our first meeting a few days ago or not it seems like we might need to have some additional ideas of what we will be talking about the first Thursday of November. Well it’s your turn. What are some interesting ideas you’ve recently read? What songs have you heard? What media have you seen? Anything that at least sort of fits into this idea that I’m trying to figure out, Emergent Church?

So what I’m hoping for is something along the idea of what I did last time. In a comment paste a brief quote or show a link to a site. My request is that what ever we are looking at, be brief. I know that is unfair but otherwise I just won’t read it and I don’t think I’m the only one. Following the quote, fire off a few questions.

OK, OK, Emergent Church is pretty broad. If you need a little help narrowing things down, we kind of ended our last meeting talking about community. Is there community anywhere? Can it be found in the church? Does the church do it well? Does the church need to integrate with the greater community at large?

So there is an idea, but please don’t let that limit you. Part of the reason I’m excited about this group is that I will learn of things I can’t even find the questions for yet.

Tall Dark and Handsome

2006-10-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Last night went well. It was kind of like a blind date. Nobody knew how to find each other or what we looked like, but we all seemed to find each other anyhow…

I think?

It could be that folks sauntered on by without finding the discussion group. I hope not. This is definitely an open group so if you missed this one you’re more then welcome to come on over next time.

When and where is the next time?

November 2, 2006 7:30 pm
Ike Box
299 Cottage Street NE
Salem, OR 97301

Keep checking back for a little more about what happened last night and what to look forward to for next time! Discussion and comments always welcome.

Tom

(Zane - if you found the blog let me know!)

Let's Get This Party Started

2006-09-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hello to whoever is reading this! Glad you’re here. Quite honestly what got me started on this whole blog thing, and subsequently this burgeoning discussion group, is my own desire to chat with folks about some ideas I’ve been reading about. These ideas might fall under terms like; post-modern, emergent, missional Christianity, and a hand full of others. It seems I get a lot out of talking about ideas. More than I get out of just reading and then thinking by myself! I want more than just some head knowledge or theory. I want to think out loud, talk about this stuff and see if it works, with real people, like you. So if you’re still with me maybe you’d like to chat about some of these ideas too.

We’ll be meeting at the Ike Box coffee shop downtown on the first Thursday of each month beginning in October. So it’s official, October 5, 2006 at 7:30pm. We’ll meet for about an hour and a half.

Since the first “emergent” book I read was Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” I thought it’d be appropriate to discuss a few points from his book. I’ll post a few concepts from his book over the next few days in hopes of generating a bit of pre-meeting discussion. I’m hoping to see a few (or a bunch) of comments leading up to our meeting time.

Page 13, “I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s heart into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit. I grew up going to church, so I got used to hearing about God. He was like Uncle Harry or Aunt Sally except we didn’t have pictures.”

What is so bad about having a good habit? Can we connect with God through traditions? What, if any, disciplines are necessary? Do you agree with what Don is saying?

Here’s another one.

The following story is from chapter 11. Don and his friends make a confession booth and bring it to Reed College during a big party weekend. They turn the tables on what you might expect would happen. The following is from page 122; it is the story of the first person entering the confessional:

“What’s up man?” Duder sat himself on the chair with a smile on his face. He told me my pipe smelled good.

“Thanks,” I said. I asked him his name, and he said his name was Jake. I shook his hand because I didn’t know what to do, really.

“So, what is this? I’m supposed to tell you all of the juicy gossip I did at Ren Fayre, right?” Jake said.

“No.”

“Okay, then what? What’s the game?” He asked.

“Not really a game. More of a confession thing.”

“You want me to confess my sins, right?”

“No, that’s not what we’re doing, really.”

“What’s the deal, man? What’s with the monk outfit?”

“Well, we are, well, a group of Christians here on campus, you know.”

… “I see,” said Jake….

“So there is this group of us on campus who wanted to confess to you.”

“You are confessing to me!” Jake said with a laugh.

“Yeah. We are confessing to you. I mean, I am confessing to you.”…

“What are you confessing?” he asked.

I shook my head and looked at the ground. “Everything,” I told him.

“Explain,” he said.

“There’s a lot. I will keep it short,” I started…

Don then goes on to confess. What do you/we have to confess for? Are there things which we should clearly NOT confess or apologize for? Is this an attitude shift from how you/we usually behave? What is the possible impact of taking on this attitude? In neighborhoods? Schools? Our city? Beyond?

Please post a comment or just let me know if your thinking of coming on October 5th! Keep coming back for more, and see ya soon.

2006-08-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

I just sent the following information to the Emergent Village Website folks. So we should have a link from them soon. I should also mention that I met with the pastor of Emmaus Community Church (http://www.emmauscommunitychurch.com/), DJ. I think with some help and encouragement from him we'll get a group or "cohort" together soon.

If you'd like to join the conversation send me an e-mail! tomvanderveen@juno.com

The following is what I sent to emergent village (http://www.emergentvillage.com/Site/index.htm):

We don't have much happening yet, but it looks like we will be meeting once a month beginning next month. As you may notice the web site is in need of some updates and improvement, for example emergent is spelled with two "t"s in the address.

Oops!

So things will be improved and change a bit over the next couple months. This is what we've got so far.

I'm not sure what to ask for as far as help but I'm sure I will think of things later. Any suggestions are appreciated!
City: OR, SalemContact Name(s): Tom van der Veen
Contact Email(s): tomvanderveen@juno.com
Cohort Name: emergent valley
Cohort Web/blog address: http://emergenttvalley.blogspot.com/
Description: We are a forming group of people that discuss emergent cultural and religious issues.
Typical Meeting Location: Ike Box (a coffee shop downtown)
Address: 299 Cottage Street NE
City: Salem
State:Oregon
Zip: 97301

Thanks so much!
Tom van der Veen
http://emergenttvalley.blogspot.com/

Still Undefined

2006-07-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm on a search for a few others who are engaging in this "emergent" conversation. I'm reluctant to use any term such as emergent, to define this because as with any label it is usually inadequate at defining what it is. But, I'm using the term anyhow.

I've discovered I'm not alone in the Salem/Keizer area regarding the emergent church. I've met with a fella that recently planted a church out in South Salem, http://www.cascadehillscoc.org/. Although I don't believe Jason would align himself completely with this emergent change it was clear to me that the church he is pastoring is attempting to reach out to folks and make every attempt to not let the institution of the church be a barrier to their relationship with God, while at the same time staying true to what he believes the church is called by God to be. He suggested a book, Missional Church. I will likely take a look at it soon. He also invited me to a lunch with local church planters (I think), where I hope I can continue looking into these issues. Jason also mentioned that at the school where he meets there is another church plant that uses the same facility, http://www.emmauscommunitychurch.com/ . I contacted the pastor of this church and hope to look over some of the website information and maybe meet with him.

So finding others is not a insurmountable challenge. Even meeting with them (I found one) is not so hard. I guess what I'm still holding out for is a conversation, or a relationship with folks. I don't think I want to leave my church, http://salemalliance.org/, its a good place to be, particularly, the "Lifepath" group that meets on Saturday night is a great place to be.

I should also mention, I'm reading a great book by Rob Bell (see http://www.mhbcmi.org/ for more about his church) Velvet Elvis. It's a bit controversial, but I think usually right on target.

OK enough rambling, time for something different. If you have read this or any other post of mine I'd like to hear your comments. Leave anything you want! Let me know I'm not writing to no one.

Thanks!

What Is This All About?

2006-07-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

As I have stated before, I'm unskilled at this whole blog thing. But watch me improve. This blog will show my journey toward my discovery of the "next generation" church, or "emergent" church in the Salem/Keizer area.

I relate to books like A New Kind of Christian, and Blue Like Jazz. But if you asked me why I relate to these books and others like it, I don't think I could tell you quickly. So I'm setting out on a adventure of trying to figure out what this new culture is all about. Maybe I will find that it is much more than a culture, maybe I will find people along the way which will show me new places and ideas I've never thought of. I know I'm not the first to walk this path, I would like to find others that are already on this adventure and potentially invite others to join me. This blog will chronicle my travels.

Welcome to Emergent Valley..?

2006-06-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

So I'm not much of a computer expert. I barely know what a blog is. But my bride and I'd like to see if we can find a small crowd of folks in the Willamette Valley, specifically the Salem/Keizer area who are interested in talking about "emergent" ideas. Well...?

Tom