Post-Kings Head

During last night's King's Head theology pub, it occurred to me that I started this blog two years ago today. Which of course led to another "toast" around the table -- predominantly Guinness, with a few drinking other, lesser brews.

The pub was really crowded last night, and conversation as an entire table (all ten of us) was difficult for some time, but people simply began to have smaller conversations around the table, until we were able -- a hour or so later -- to actually hear everyone and could have a larger, round-table discussion (our table was round).

It was amazing to see how quickly people who had never met before -- including Norm, who lurks around various blogs but had never commented, and just showed up hoping to spot the theology freaks (not hard, apparently) -- just began talking together, sharing their stories, and we were one of the loudest tables in terms of laughter in the pub that night.

At one point, I was having a conversation where I was asked, "When things go bad, how do you keep from losing your faith?" The level of vulnerability and openness was incredible. I was also privileged to hear bits and pieces of other's journeys (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and again, the vulnerability and openness was quite profound.

Emerging Grace had asked us yesterday, "How do you envision a more missional or emerging church expression?"

When I posed this question to the entire group, Ken (The Reluctant Blogger) suggested, "It looks just like this." Meaning a group of Christians sitting around a pub table, with Guinness, being authentic and honest with each other, and enjoying friendship and talking about God.

Optional addition: Jamie Arpin-Ricci chimed in that a few Canadians (the people, not the beer) should ideally be a part of any grouping, while Dan-D suggested that the beer should be required to be Guinness, or at least a Canadian brew (apparently, last night's conventional wisdom agreed that "American beer" is an oxymoron).

There was some discussion about Emergent Canada starting up, which Jamie and the Tall Skinny Kiwi had already started blogging about. We bounced the topic around for awhile -- the place had quieted to the point where we could finally all hear each other -- and came up with this:

1. We're all in favour of the expanding conversation in Canada, which Jordon Cooper has been trying to faciliate through Resonate.ca for over a year already.
   
   Jordon has wisely recognized the regional diversity of Canada makes a unified, national voice difficult, so he's been encouraging people to gather regionally as they see fit. Regionality in Canada is much more pronounced that in the USA, and so while Emergent Canada is great as a resource and sounding board, the various regions of Canada will likely have a fairly strong regional voice amongst themselves.
   
   
2. There was concern over "franchising" or "branding". We all had generally positive opinions of the work that Emergent Village US and Emergent UK are doing, but a sticking point was "paying for friendship" -- you have to make donations to Emergent Village to be a part of the conversation, which hasn't gone over that well with quite a number of people. The concensus seemed to be that if Emergent simply asked for donations (perhaps through a PayPal link on their site), people would be willing to help out as they could, but the idea that donations were required for "friendship" wasn't as appealing.
   
   
3. The most important piece, for me at least, was that we need to reaffirm a commitment, as bloggers, to being in conversation with each other. The sudden appearance of Emergent Canada caught many off-guard, and the question that seemed to sum it up was, "Who are these guys, anyway? Have any of us heard of them, or have they been in the conversation already on your blog(s)?"
   
   The answer to this, as Jordon Cooper pointed out, is to go to the Emergent Village Canada website, fill out the survey, and get involved in the conversation anyway. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if they've been in the conversation before -- if anything, those of us who have been at this longer, should be welcoming their voice and their efforts, and building bridges.

When we finally left (around midnight), there was a general feeling of "this was a great first outing -- let's do it again!", which I'm sure Brother Maynard, having survived with his secret identity intact, would be willing to help facilitate (he's downstairs wanting coffee right now, so I'll "recruit" him before leaving town on Monday).

UPDATE: I tried following my own advice, and went to fill out the survey, except that I couldn't scroll down to complete the survey, or even click a "submit" button to send even a partially completed finished version. I blame it on my having to use a non-Macintosh computer. Hopefully, this will be corrected soon!