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September 2011
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In this
Issue:
Endorse the EP Meet the EP: Christian Amondson New on bLOGOS Jonathan Wilson-Hartrove at the CPD Gathering 2012: Slow Church, Fast Friends | |
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 World Communion Sunday, observed this year on October 3, was born out of the ecumenical impulse of 1930s liberal Protestantism and rooted in the idea that, with enough determination and sunny resolve, the Church could make visible its unity in the face of escalating political strife. But if unity is better understood as a gift Christ offers his transglobal body (and not our own moral achievement), and if this gift is made known to us in the breaking of bread, then surely every Lord's Day is World Communion Sunday. There is no time when we gather that we are not constituted as the body of Christ -- taken, blessed, broken, and shared -- and thus commissioned for work and witness in a dangerous, strife-filled world.
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Endorse or Re-endorse the EP
One cannot "become a member" of the EP because we believe that membership should be reserved for our local congregation or faith community. But we do encourage those who share our core convictions to endorse (or for those who did so years ago, re-endorse) the EP.
Endorsing the Ekklesia Project is an expression of our commitment to God, the Church, and the friendship we share in Christ. Recognizing that friends ask things of one another, we therefore ask of ourselves and our fellow endorsers that we:
- maintain vital prayer lives
- participate in the worship and missional life of our local congregations
- practice the traditional works of mercy (e.g., feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, welcoming the stranger)
- observe a regular fast (from food, technology, or other good) as a form of resistance to the idolatries of our culture
- support the work of the Ekklesia Project with our prayers and, as we are able, with our monetary gifts
We know that we will need to rely on each other to be faithful in these things-to give and to receive strength and encouragement. We trust in the goodness of God to see us through. To endorse the EP, please follow this link. |
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Meet the EP: Christian Amondson
Please meet Christian Amondson. He is a native of the Northwest, having grown up in the Portland area. Christian attended Warner Pacific College before pursuing graduate studies at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. He now lives in Eugene, Oregon as a member of Church of the Servant King and is newly married to Katie Brownell Amondson. The couple lives with seven other folks in a household. For the past three years Christian has worked as the Assistant Managing Editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Christian first heard about EP while studying at Regent College . During that time his theological convictions were urging him to live faithfully within the Body of Christ in a North American context. Of course, having grown up within an Evangelical culture that defined faith almost exclusively in terms of a "personal relationship" with Jesus, Christian's growing conviction that faith was really about the way of discipleship to the crucified Lord and that this discipleship must be lived out within the context of a membered body, quickly led him to a more acute ecclesial loneliness than he had experienced in the past. Thus, it became much more important and exciting to find friends who were also on the way with him.
He says finding the EP was a good gift in this regard, as he discovered friendships both around the country and in his own community, friendships that eventually led him to his home in Eugene. |
New on bLOGOS
Let Others Decide
BY RAGAN SUTTERFIELD
I call myself a gardener. I've even written how-to articles on growing things. But anyone who took a look at the burned-over mess in my front yard this year would have their doubts. Whatever my thoughts about myself, whatever a byline might state, this sum mer I failed to live up to that title. I failed, in my distractions and the particular demands of this drought season, to carry out the disciplines necessary to be a gardener. I was glad to claim the title "gardener" and not suffer the heat, time and sweat that would really make me one.
Because of this experience, I can understand some of what the Pharisees must have felt as they heard Jesus' parable-they were God's people, the rightful inhabitants of the promise-land, the keepers of the Law. "To be God's people": that was how they defined themselves, particularly among their pagan neighbors and occupiers. Read More
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Center for Parish Development Offers Presentations by Wilson-Hartgrove
From Dale Zeimer of the CPD: Do you wonder where to start the conversation about engaging the neighborhood of your faith community or what such engagement might look like? Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a friend in the Ekklesia Project, was keynote speaker in the missional church convocation sponsored by the Center for Parish Development this year in Chicago. His talk on Finding our Place, offers fresh imagination and thinking to how and why the church engages its neighborhoods. We invite you to read Center Letter Blog and share your thoughts and experience, continuing the conversation from this year's EP Gathering. What if the church didn't ever ignore the place in God's vineyard where it is planted? Join the conversation now, or start one in your community. The Center's Inagrace Dietterich, Dale Ziemer, and Ray Schulte are also EP friends. |
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Slow Church, Fast Friends
The 2012 Gathering planning team is now fully assembled with the addition of Patti Hom of Grace Fellowship Community Church. Patti will serve as 'czar of logistics,' with Joel Shuman serving as planning chair. The team is meeting regularly, and has begun by sharing thoughts on the attraction to and need for a focus on slow church. Here are excerpts from their reflections:
Slow Thoughts
Patti Hom challenges us to examine "the sentiment behind our restlessness and our giving up on the church before we've even tried to embrace God's call/story."
Stan Wilson points out that "It's not just that we're too busy, which we are, but that we seem to lack a telos. We're rushing toward nothing in particular; just rushing."
Chris Smith shares this from his forthcoming book: "The [Slow Church] vision of our life together is one that is both holistic in its scope and slow in its pace. There is a great temptation, of course, to err toward one of these facets over the other. We get so consumed by the broadness of our call to follow God holistically in the reconciliation of all things that we become frantic in our efforts to see that vision brought to fruition. On the other hand, it is easy for us to get so comfortable with the pleasures of our slow life together and the friendships we have in our church community that we lose sight of God's reconciling work beyond our community."
Ragan Sutterfield directs us to listen to David and observe Oscar: Psalm 131 perhaps expresses best what attracts me to this idea of slow church. A slow church is a humble church, a church that waits upon God, a church that is patient and does not act because it must fill the silences required for listening. I recently watched the movie Romero about the journey of Oscar Romero in his struggle for justice for the people of El Salvador. Romero is a model of the slow church-he waited upon God, he resisted the desire for the expedience of violence that many of priests were drawn into, and yet his slowness was no passivity-he demanded love and justice and was willing to wait for them patiently, directly as a great inconvenience to those ready to take up violence against the Salvadorian people or in defense of them. He is the patron saint of the Slow Church perhaps-a saint I want to learn from. This prayer often attributed to Romero may be a good guide as we continue to discern what the Slow Church is.
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