fred - very cool on the book publishing. i look forward to the read - let us know when it's out -

pax

I was an elder. No more; I just recently resigned because of the subtle and continual dismissive statements thrown my way by the other elders. My ministry model (POMO) was considered an aberration while there’s was considered the norm (modern). Actually I over stayed my time trying to make things work.

On another note I just finished writing a book titled, “A Mobile Church For E.P.I.C. Times: Moving Across Faith Community Borders." Leonard Sweet did the Foreword; Andrew Perriman (Open Source Theology and a contributor to this site) wrote the Introduction and Brian McLaren and Sally Morgenthaler did back cover blurbs. Book should be avaliable in 3-4 weeks.

John, I know how you feel. I'm still looking as well.

However, my challenge to us all, is that we prepare ourselves to be "good" elders for the emerging generation behind us. May we, as leaders, not fail the next bunch the way past generations have failed many of us.

i'm not sure if i want an "elder" - in the realm of age - in my life. as of late, all the older people i talk with seem to want to judge me and tell me that what i think and how i feel is wrong. it's hard to listen to "wisdom" when it is designed to condem and control. when i speak with elders, i am told how to act, what to think and when to think it. if i think outside their evagelical reality i am tage a "anti-christian" and ignored.

so, maybe i would rather have a good elder - someone who would guide without judging; someone who will share, without demanding i do everything they say and how they say it. maybe we are all looking for that elder, the one who cares, the one who loves, the one who listens - more then the one who talks. maybe, just maybe - when the time comes and we count the clock - we will be the elder's we desire - and not the ones we dread -

pax
john

I'd give about anything for a good elder or two in my life. Recently I've been participating in some meetings with other local ministry types in which I'm typically the youngest one present (35). These experiences combined with where I am in life have made me desperately hungry for something like an elder. There are times when I don't want to talk to anymore peers or young radicals. (frequent these days) I need wisdom!! Having said that, an elder, from a biblical perspective, is not merely an old person. Age is not even the main ingredient. Let's steer clear of arrogance and make sure we are being equipped to serve in that ministry ourselves, by God's good grace.

Elders, John Wayne, Gandalf, Mel Gibson.. a metaphorical tour de force ;)

So how we we value what has gone before without setting our own feet in that fine box of concrete?

I agree we need elders.. in particular, true elders who have not made the mistake of confusing the vehicle and the journey. Its incredible, but there really are some old dudes (and dudesses) out there who are still alive and risking. When you meet them you know them. They are a profound blessing and a witness to the wind that blows where it will.

As for those who are still living in the modern world.. God bless em. Let them live and let their monuments die with them. They won't mind, and we can move on into the new world, mobile and living in tents, not building altars and tabernacles. Or rather, building those things in human hearts..

re-elders

John Wayne is a symbol of Americanism. The independent spirit, the do it my way or be blasted into kingdom come. Because of this pioneer mentality, each generation seems to have the need to seperate itself from previous generations and pioneer a new path instead of improving/extending the old paths. Even our parents generation, paved a new path and rejected the paths of their fathers, and each generation refuses to admit that they might have errors in their path.

Our generation is even worse, we get tired of a path after a few months. We have the consumer mentality that every three months everything needs to change. Top ten songs don't last long, we move on to the newest music, with the coolest beat. Our gadgets change with the wind, and our culture just keeps reinventing itself.

Growing up in different cultures, I noticed several differences. One was that each generation didn't feel the need to build brand new paths. They were content to walk the old paths, just improve or extend their reach. Much like the farmer, who passes the farm to his son, then passes the farm to his son etc... The farm is the same, but the tools change as the leader changes.

So I think the problem is not that elders are bad, we've just got an individualistic society that can;t see beyond itself. The great question is not what kind of elders our parents were, but what kind are we going to be. In some of the things I hear, and some of the things I see/say it seems that we may be a chip off the old block after all. When my son hears me rant and rave about the elders around me, then one day he too by learned behavior will probably rant and rave about my selfish ways.

It seems to me that we need to find some Gandalfs (elders). We need to show our children that their is a legacy that we belong to, and we must continue. While much has changed the lack of vision beyond our own lives is still alive and well. Let us find the diamonds amongst the coal and treasure them, but let us not discard the diamonds simply because the coal is in the way.



Saint Alford

My guess is that when people start talking about venerating the bones of their ancestors, the statement is only partly an affirmation of the value of traditions, elders, forebears, etc., and shouldn't be taken too literally. More usually it's an attempt to correct something that has gone awry in the present - such as an obsessive need to be innovative, trendy, radical, cutting edge, cool, etc., or modern evangelicalism's inability to appreciate anything prior to or outside the Reformation traditions. As for Jody's remarks - when has it ever been different? There has always been a tension between the old and the new, stability and creativity, institution and individual, consolidation and mission. It was true for Israel; it has been true for the church. We have to put up with it. I just thank God that the Spirit constantly renews.

our elders?

i had a discussion this weekend with a group of people who are big on "connecting to past generations" so we can learn from them. but here's the problem i am having with this idea of seeing "elders as all knowing" - they screwed-up so much, what can they truly teach? how can we look to a "past generation" for "advise" when we think differently? what can a modern person teach us? (excluding what "not" to do). i am not sure all this talk about "letting the older generations teach us" is truly valid - maybe if we see it as "learning from their mistakes" i could see it, but then that is more negative then i desire to be - what i have found is that our "older generations" of christians say things like, "you think just like us, except you use different words" - but we don't, a postmodern person does not think as a modern; i do not think like my parents. i don't think like an evangelical - i use different words, because they have different meanings. i see things fundermentally different; i start at a different point and i move in a different direction - what can a modern generation teach?

i have found that when people say, "we can learn from past generations" what they mean is - if they are the past generation, "do as i say." i am having a rewal hard time processing this idea that we need to respect the generations before us - i think it was len sweet who said (and i am paraphasing) that postmodern people "venerate the bones of our ancestors." i'm not sure that is true. just some random thoughts on the subject.

pax

is community limited by boarders? is it limited by distance? is it limited by other physical groupings? i don't think so. i think true community transends all that we see and know - we are defining the new, not redefining the old. community, to me, seems to be a grouping of people who can feel the hearts and minds of others - building friendships based on emotion, not what we look like. let's be honest, if we were all to meet, before this little exersize in community building, whould we truly be friends? based on our pasts, and who we know in the "real world" would we select each other as people we wanted to hang out with? many, when they see me coming, move to the other side of the street - because i look "scary." so, i wonder - would we all be friends in "the real world?"

and john, i love the buechner quote - killer.

pax

laurie,

i agree, time and being with each other is essential to intimacy. there is quote i love in frederick buechner's godric "what's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds" i love the image of sharing all of the pain and joy of life thats where God is and i want more of it.

blessings,
john wallis

Gosh, how many Johns are there? I am not John. Woohooo... But I'm hearing what you're all saying.

Yea, online communities ARE community of a sort, but very much lacking from the kind of community we experience with the locals. And yes, touch has a lot to do with creating a deeper sense of community. (Loved the "piece" by the way.) But I think that in addition to touch, some other things that create more depth of communal relationship are time spent together, doing things together, eating together, helping one another with physical needs, and just being in close proximity with one another in the good times and the bad. Online, we can choose to go away when we wish, or not be there if we're just not interested. When we're working together side by side, we must deal with one another's idiosyncrasies whether we want to or not. So, the online community can be helpful and enriching, but far from satisfying.

One thing I keep asking myself is: Am I spending so much time online that I neglect the community around me? It is often so much easier for me to sit and type in the comfort of my own home, I struggle to get out to be with people. Not so good. But, if the sense of community I get here is satisfying some need in me (to talk with people from other frames of reference with different perspectives I might find helpful)...this is some level of important communication.

john, whihch john is this anyway, i know after posting this, but its hard to tell on the site :)

i agree with you about the level of intimacy you can have through web relationships although there are some pretty cool things that happen. i had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago and had been reading his blog prior to our meet, and the week before christmas had two people come visit from saint louis and he had read my blog and me his. what was cool about both meetings was we already knew where to begin, one a person i had known for a while the other brand new. but for me its the touch that makes the intimacy work, i wrote a piece about it a while back. i have had many conversations with people about this topic but i still come back to the touching thing. when we actually feel a person, see their eyes, hair, posture, etc we know them in ways you can never achieve over the net. i am not sure we will ever be able to replace that i mean touch. i think its how we are created.

Good questions. There are definite levels of community. I am a member of my community here in Nishinagane-cho (a civic division of about four blocks). But of course being a member of that community comes no where near the sort of community that I find with the people who live in my house. The internet community, for me, is somewhere in between those two. It is enriching and I enjoy it, but I don't think it is any kind of substitute for an actual "touching" community of faith. I don't feel I can really, deeply get to know a person through the internet, at least I have not yet.

how do we define community? are internet groups community? does "touch" need to be part of a human relationship? how do we define borders in the age of the internet? just some things i have been thinking about.

pax
john

aaron,

i think you are right - that would work also.