Cohort Meet and Greet Pictures

These aren't very good, sorry. Apparently my camera phone was irritable that night.

It was great to meet everybody. I'm looking forward to the art show and to continuing the discussion and getting into action.

Have a great week!

First Cohort Meet & Greet!

Well, even with a little hiccup last night with The Camel, the Richmond Cohort had its very first meet and greet at The Village Cafe. I think it was a success, with 13 people coming out! After we went around and introduced ourselves, Katryna asked us: 1. Why we came to the cohort? and 2. What we wanted to get out of the monthly meetings? Here are the responses:

*Provocative, network w/ like-minded, more real, interesting people
*Someone brought me here
*Conversations about a Biblical model of justice
*Outreach to Christians who are unchurched, not traditional, burned out on traditional church
*Don't get support for what they are doing @ their own church
*In her church, breaking away from tradition. Church needs to change.
*Acceptance & unconditional love
*"This is crap", speaking of traditional church
*I have a lot of issues with the church and want to move beyond anger & bitterness. I don't fit in most churches.
*Positive change
*Bored, more active participant, non-traditional
*Bored, mad @ GOD, stopped going to church, "not fit", traditional roots in new ways. Church is still highly PATRIARCHIAL. Need more expansive imagery of GOD.
*More diversity: race, ethnic, GLBTQ, different beliefs/non-belief welcome and accepted AND NOT expected to change.
*Safe place to doubt and question faith/beliefs, et. al.

The funny thing to me was that the women outnumbered the men at our meeting, which from my personal experience in emergent circles, is a rarity! Now we need even more diversity!

Thanks to everyone who came out and made our first meeting such a success!

See you all next month!

Adele aka Existential Punk

"Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief"

Here's a note from my good friend, Pete Rollins, about his forthcoming and second book, "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief" published by Paraclete Press:

In this work I make the claim that, in order to remain faithful to Christianity, we must be courageous enough to betray the bible (section 1), God (section 2) and the church (section 3). Why? Do I think that we must abandon them as redundant relics of a by-gone era? Do I think that they have served their purpose? Or do I feel that they prevent the world coming of age? By no means! Here I argue for a betrayal that remains faithful to these very words by helping us to re- discover the truly untamed, white-hot, life-transforming reality that they house.

This book was not easy to write and it will no doubt be difficult to read, but I hope that you find it to be a provocative and worthy dialogue partner as you continue to reflect upon what it means to follow Christ today.

Cheers,
Pete Rollins

And the ride begins!

Thanks to Brian McLaren and the "Everything Must Change" tour, it looks like the Richmond Cohort is about to take off.

As I expected, there is a nice number of emergent thinkers in the Richmond area. We've just never had the chance to be introduced.

But now is the time.

On Saturday, April 26 at 6:00 PM we will be having our first Richmond Cohort meeting. The meet-and-greet will be held at The Camel, Richmond's new social oasis. As our networks are beginning to mesh, it looks like we could have a nice turnout.

I can't wait for the opportunity to meet others not like me.