Looking and listening for emerging theologies

I think that one of the hardest things for us leaders in the church to do is to humbly look at and listen to what is going on outside the church (or even outside our particular denomination). Could there be emerging theologies brewing outside the church which are consistent with the stories of Jesus and being given life by the Spirit? Do we only consider that which is arising from within recognised Christian denominations as emerging theology?

If you search on the internet you will see that there are many male church leaders forcefully speaking and writing against what is emerging within the church. Why is this? Are they afraid that Christians will be led astray once more or are they afraid of losing power or what? I am not surprised at this because this has been the history of the church. Church history has been written by the victors, not the losers. The victors being those who exercised power and excluded others with an alternative view or theology. Often these were excommunicated from the church or from a particular denomination. Theological view points were enforced by threat of death and by the use of armed forces. Writings were burned along with their authors. Thus we have had a suppression of female voices, alternative voices, minority voices, prophetic voices etc. So when I see this debate going on within the church I just think here we go again.

Rather than defending the truth at all costs, would it not be more in line with following Jesus to take a more humble approach? If we are so set in our beliefs as being right may we not be in danger of not following the Spirit in this day? My experience has been that there are many people outside the church who do not consider themselves as Christian but who are engaging with the teaching of Jesus and living this out in their lives. Surely how we live is more important than what we believe or at least what we believe must be lived out not just believed?  Unfortunately many of us live out what we believe the gospel to be in a violent way and unaware of the violence we do to others. Is this the gospel of Jesus we are living out or is it the gospel eclipsed by ego, power and the desire to control? How different might the church be if we emphasised living out love and if we looked and listened beyond the church to what may be emerging?

Creating space for gathering and reflecting

Creating space for gathering and reflection

Recently, I and another person were speaking at the North Sydney monthly Business Network Lunch associated with the Uniting Church. The title for our presentation was ‘Holding space for change’. This particular meeting had the highest turn out of female attendees ever. I asked a few of the women why they had come to this particular meeting. It was the title and the different descriptions of space used in the advertising that had captured their imagination; words such as: community space, sacred space, liminal space, suspended space and neutral space. In our presentation we also spoke about safe space, shared space, uncontested space, and cyber space. The words had resonated with their own desires to enter a space which would enable them to explore and open up to possibilities. By using particular language we were able to create a space for reflection.