Eliacin Rosario-Cruz

The day was started by a contemplative and challenging morning prayers lead by Mark Pierson, with the theme of Conspiring in the City.

The first part of the day was divided between a short interview, Conspiracy Session 1 and a short panel discussion. In the morning Tom Sine interviewed Mark Scandrette, Tomas Yaccino, Kathy Escobar and Tim Morey. Each share some about their communities and experience. Kathy shared a bit of the horizontal structure of her church – The Refuge. She explained how the faith community is intentionally set up to be horizontal in which every person have a voice. One of the questions to her from one of the other participats was, how do you then keep orthodoxy in a place where everyone can speak with the same authority. Kathy gave a very good answer – if orthodoxy is about right teaching and if  people experience Jesus is different ways, then there are different orthodoxies (at least that was my take on it). Mark shared about the way of living him and his wife Lisa have been practicing for the last 17 years. He shared how the Jesus Dojo, came a some sort of experimental school to learn the way of Jesus, but not in your traditional way, but in an incarnational way in their local community. Thomas shared about churches in the Dominican Republic in which members do not wait for the church to give the stamp of approval or to have lots of money and resources to start meeting the needs of others. Because the context of those churches is relational and communal, the problems of the community are the problems of the church, and it is there resposibility to meet needs and bring restoration.  Tim gave us a brief profile of his church as a church of small groups in which 80 % of the people are involve in ministry in their community with a 1/3 of the budget going outside building for ministry in the community.

Roy Soto from La Red del Camino is here beside me skyping his wife in Costa Rica. The man is crazy and I’m loving hanging out with him and Tomas Yaccino. It was a must for me to participate in their workshop about missional church in Latin America. As a frustrated church planter in Puerto Rico, I wished I’ve known of the network earlier. Their approach to the mission of the church is about justice, restoration, love in the context of the local neighborhood and barrios. Because of the cultural and political history of colonialism in Latin America, christians are used to a very patriarchal and imperial model of church. La Red is challenging that paradigm with a horizontal and relational one.

During lunch I joined part of the Submergent conversation. The group is exploring the emerging church conversation in the context of non-violence and peace in the anabaptist tradition.

In the afternoon Ricci and I lead our creative session about radical living in the heart of the home. The conversation went well, people got the chance to create new rhythms and celebrations for the family.

It is 4:32 p.m. and most of the people are exploring the city – the group self-organized into 4 groups to visit 4 different neighborhood in Seattle. They will be engaging with the people of those neighbors and exploring what it means to conspire in the city.

In the afternoon I had a blast with Roy and Tomas – again the locos from La Red del Camino . Roy was in the mood to eat rice and beans and meat, so I took them to La Casa del Mojito. The guys there are just amazing. The place is small, the salsa and merengue music was blasting and they really know how to make you feel welcome. After a delicious meal and a couple mojitos, we were given a a flan on the house. After a couple bites, Roy asked for another one which was given to us on the house. And then before we left our friend at the restaurant once again came with a small box with yet another flan for Roy.

In the evening Shane Claiborne shared stories about Philadelphia. Christine then led us in evening prayers.

Now I am at home sharing some of our Mustard Seed House homebrew with Mark Pierson and Mark Van Steenwyk. Just unwiding before heading out to bed.

There are another folks blogging, doing a great job reporting from the conference, check them out.

Mark Van Steenwyk

Steve Lewis

Jonathan Brink

Also check out the photos from the conference at Flickr.

No you’re not seeing double. What you are seeing is the new line of clothing for emerging christian radicals.

The attire of preference is a Castro fatigue, black rim glasses and a hat.

Here is Mark Van Steenwyck and me modeling the new line for the season.

I just got back home from a night full of energy and new faces. Our first session at The New Conspirators went really well.

The new sanctuary of Bethany Community Church was full. There were a wide range of ages and background. For me the age thing is very important because for a time this reimagining, and dreaming of new expressions of christianity was label as just a generational thing. But the paradigm shift is real and it is not only experienced by young people, it is been embrace by many postmoderns old and young.

I was impressed to hear how far people have come to be part of this Festival of the Imagingation. There are people from Texas, California, Michigan, Republica Dominicana, Costa Rica, Vancouver BC and New Zealand among others.

The night started with a clip from Strictly Ballroom. David Laird did a fantastic job with the montage of images from the film. The movie is about a young ballroom dancer who is want to dance his own steps and not be boxed by the old way of dancing. From the film, Tom Sine took us into a brief description of the 4 streams to be explore in during the conference. The streams are not in any way, shape or form separate, they are interconnected and in many ways interdependent. The streams we are talking about are – emerging, missional, monastic and multicultural expression of christian spirituality and church. Tom did a good job with the introduction to the conference. He can pack so much information and is so eager to share it with people, that sometime the content of his talk can be a bit overwhelming. But that didn’t happen tonight. There was some time in the evening for people to ask some questions about how to engage in creative ways to give expression to the Kingdom.

After the presentation, the rest of the presenters came up to introduce themselves and talk a bit about their workshops (or Conspiracy Sessions as we are calling it).

Christine Sine led us in a litany for peace and wholeness as we closed the official part of the event with evening prayer. Afterward people had a chance to network and connect in the Common Space.

Tonight I got to meet some friends whom I had only known thru the blogosphere. Steve Lewis who blogs at Spirit Farmer and Justin Baeder who blogs at Radical Congruency.

While on my way to find my ride, I was approached by an Episcopal Priest who is interested in the emerging church and wanted to start a conversation, sadly I didn’t had much time to talk but we will connect soon.

I’m looking forward spending time with my new found friends Roy Soto and Tomas Yaccino, 2 locos, from La Red del Camino – a network of friends and churches embodying God’s Kingdom in Latin America.

Update: You can see some photos of the event here.

You can follow and join the conversation here (we hope, it is an experiement, we’ll see what happens).

You can use your OpenID to join the live discussion at The New Conspirators before, during, or after the event.

The chat room works as a live chat and/or a message board. So even if no one is currently in the thread you’re interested in, leave a note anyway. When people join, they will see it!

Blog » Mustard Seed Associates » Creating the future one mustard seed at a time

In the today edition of the Seattle Times there is an article Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynwood, WA and their pastor Eileen Hanson.

from the artcle:

Rather than the top-down approach of many mainline churches, Trinity decided to have members propose ideas for groups based on their own passions or needs they saw in the community. The groups receive seed money and help from the staff but are expected to become financially self-sustaining.

Eileen is one of the participants at The New Conspirators > Festival of the Imagination.

You can read the article here – “*Congregation learning new ways to do church.*