today was the start of the emergent convention, critical concerns courses, the actual start time isn't until tomorrow. i sat in on the embracing church course. there was some good dialogue and i'm looking forward to going back in the morning. leaders of the course are, tony peterson (who is with the upperroom), glandion carney (a self proclaimed "reformed pastor" & someone who i am very interested in getting to know more), jay voorhees (united methodist pastor part of nashville cohort, semi-prolific blogger, picture above), and brain mclaren (author and named one of 25 most influential evangelicals by time mag).
i was a bit late and missed tony's intro, but jay set the theme for the course with this story, paraphrased:
“My daughter had her friend over this weekend and my youngest daughter wanted to play too.. I told my oldest daughter and her friend that they had to include the youngest daughter.. they included her, but they didn’t embrace her.
brian led us in a bible study on mark 7: 1-23 & then 24-30 . that was very intersting. he led it in a way that was somewhat lectio, but not quite. lot's of incites and views of the scriptures and possible views of Jesus. i enjoyed that greatly. the idea being that there are many ways to interpret and all are valid to some degree.
we got into the course work and i'll save that for tomorrow, i'll post my notes. the conversation, i thought was very positive overall.
oh first free book courtesy of the upperroom: a hard fought hope, by william long & glandion carney
