December 28, 2003
Books
As eagerly anticipated, I got lots and lots of books for Christmas! Accordingly (and far overdue) I've updated the "I'm reading" section on the left column. I expect to be blogging about SoulTsunami and the Da Vinci code in particular. For those of you foolish enough to try the da Vinci code quest found at the da Vinci Code site, you may be looking for help. If you run out of ideas, try Matt Thornton's blog, where a lovely englishman solves the whole of it for us, and adds a few more riddles of his own.
As eagerly anticipated, I got lots and lots of books for Christmas! Accordingly (and far overdue) I've updated the "I'm reading" section on the left column. I expect to be blogging about SoulTsunami and the Da Vinci code in particular. For those of you foolish enough to try the da Vinci code quest found at the da Vinci Code site, you may be looking for help. If you run out of ideas, try Matt Thornton's blog, where a lovely englishman solves the whole of it for us, and adds a few more riddles of his own.
I want to be a part of a mess like this!
smallritual's dissertation on the network church was fascinating to me. Here's an excerpt (but go back and read the whole thing!):
This is a possible future. Much of the institutional church has joined the network, though some remains in the old structure. Many 'parish churches' have gone, some have transformed, more 'emerging' forms have appeared - though clearly that term has a shelf life! [blue=institutional church; black=emergent church]
What particularly interested me was where this network church concerns the recent troubles in the Anglican Communion. I won't quote what he said but I'll comment:
By declaring themselves out of communion (as some sectors of the Anglican church have done over the blessing of same-sex marriage decision by the bishop of the diocese of New Westminster, the Greater Vancouver area), these sectors have attempted to cut themselves out of the network, ostensibly to punish the 'maverick' diocese, or to show where they stand on the issue. Now, I don't think that the current Western Church is at the point that this picture describes yet, not a true network. However, we as a church have made some progress along the way, and I believe as apparently does Small Ritual that this will make it more difficult for anyone to truly be out of communion.
The recent toss-up in the Anglican Church has been painful for me to watch, and I have wondered many times if perhaps God might be calling me back to the church I grew up in, simply to love and to serve a hurting communion. I grew up Anglican, in the diocese of New Westminster, but found my own personal faith when I started attending an evangelical church. Now I find myself on the outside looking in at a diocese that is seemingly imploding and I have mourned it. Small Ritual's dissertation encouraged me that by keeping my connections within the Anglican church and continuing to move along a path I'm already on, toward new and different forms of church (in all meanings of the word), I can help to 'catch' (for want of a better word) a struggling church in the network. No one need be lost from community.
smallritual's dissertation on the network church was fascinating to me. Here's an excerpt (but go back and read the whole thing!):
This is a possible future. Much of the institutional church has joined the network, though some remains in the old structure. Many 'parish churches' have gone, some have transformed, more 'emerging' forms have appeared - though clearly that term has a shelf life! [blue=institutional church; black=emergent church]
What particularly interested me was where this network church concerns the recent troubles in the Anglican Communion. I won't quote what he said but I'll comment:
By declaring themselves out of communion (as some sectors of the Anglican church have done over the blessing of same-sex marriage decision by the bishop of the diocese of New Westminster, the Greater Vancouver area), these sectors have attempted to cut themselves out of the network, ostensibly to punish the 'maverick' diocese, or to show where they stand on the issue. Now, I don't think that the current Western Church is at the point that this picture describes yet, not a true network. However, we as a church have made some progress along the way, and I believe as apparently does Small Ritual that this will make it more difficult for anyone to truly be out of communion.
The recent toss-up in the Anglican Church has been painful for me to watch, and I have wondered many times if perhaps God might be calling me back to the church I grew up in, simply to love and to serve a hurting communion. I grew up Anglican, in the diocese of New Westminster, but found my own personal faith when I started attending an evangelical church. Now I find myself on the outside looking in at a diocese that is seemingly imploding and I have mourned it. Small Ritual's dissertation encouraged me that by keeping my connections within the Anglican church and continuing to move along a path I'm already on, toward new and different forms of church (in all meanings of the word), I can help to 'catch' (for want of a better word) a struggling church in the network. No one need be lost from community.
