Posts Tagged ‘emergent’

A labyrinth with pausing places

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

logotype_menu1Today’s cool link, Labyrinth, was discovered by my church’s senior pastor, Rev. Doug Patterson. The site, created by emergent church groups in London, offers a modified labyrinth design: it fits more easily into a rectangular space than a traditional round Chartres-style labyrinth, and includes multiple pausing places with innovative prayer stations. Doug and I were both enthusiastic about the idea of bringing this style of labyrinth to our social hall here at Smithfield.

The G20 summit is being held in Pittsburgh this fall, and I think it would be amazing to set up our church - only two blocks from the convention center - as a spiritual oasis space, a place where meeting participants, protesters, press, and passers-by could stop in for quiet and re-centering before returning to the chaotic streets. A labyrinth like this one could be a great way to structure that space.

Links for the weekend

Friday, May 8th, 2009

It’s Thursday night, the start of what passes for the minister’s weekend. (Weekend? Consecutive days off? Call the cryptozoologists, because I’m not sure I’ve seen one of those lately.) Here are some links to get yours off to a good start:

  • As I mentioned in my last post, we’ve been studying the book of Jonah in Pilgrim Adventures. Since it’s the end of the year, and since I’ll be out of town this Sunday, I figured there was no shame in showing a multi-week movie. It turns out the feature-length Jonah by VeggieTales is not only available from our excellent public library system, but also streams in its entirely on Hulu!
  • I came across Peter Rollins of the emergent church movement through a recent comment on Real Live Preacher. He reads several of his parables from his new book on his blog, and they are well worth a listen. (Of course, even a shopping list would sound profound when read in an Irish accent.)  He’s also having a write-your-own parable contest at the moment, which might be a fun activity for a group of youth or adults.
  • Last night, we had dinner with the charming Melissa, who asked what I’d been up to lately. “Well, I started a blog,” I said, explaining that it’s about Christian education. “There must be a whole network of blogs like that,” she said — and I replied that, well, no, there isn’t, at least not that I’ve been able to find. Pastor’s blogs, preaching blogs, seminarian blogs — dime a dozen. But I haven’t discovered the CE blogs yet. Have you? Do you perhaps write one yourself? Let me know how to find you!