02/25

second modernism lead to such things as individualization. As a church we have to be cautious with the influence of that on us. It is obvious that faith is not something only individual and that it has a communal dimension that we can not forget. It is the role of the church to encourage a certain form of community, depending on the context and culture of course.

02/23

At the send of the class we talked about the fact that modernity brought a separation of different aspect of life (professional, spiritual, social,...). Even if that tendency is still present in our culture, I see more and more people wanting to come back to a more holistic view of the being and life. I think that the church has to jump into that and live it out.

What my church might learn from this chapter: week 8

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 6
I think that the Evangelizing practices of our church today have to be reconsidered. I'm not telling that they are not good at all, but I see a lot of "agendas" and "targeting" such as the one talked about in the book. We should question ourselves in the way we address people, is our goal to bring souls to the church or is our goal to build genuine relationship that embody the love and grace of Christ. Do we want to do apologetic through our discourses and good words or through the way we live and welcome the outcast?

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 7

More than welcoming the other (the non-christian, the marginalized, the poor,...) the church has to be a place were people are takend care of, a place where people can experience hospitality. I see in many churches things called "welcoming team" or a welcom booth... The entire body of the church should be practicing hospitality to new-comers, the entire body should be practicing hospitality to people outside the church. And that hospitality should be in fact primarely turned toward the outside of the church, with no other goal than to spread the love of God.

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 8
Introducing more participation in the modern church is a big challenge. People are so used to come and be spectators that it's gonna ask them to "be violent to themselves" to come out of the state of consumer/spectator. I think that a participative frame can be introduced little by little by opening the space more and more for everyone to be part of the leadership. Just an example is the configuration of the room, why not going from a 'everything directed to one pulpit' configuration to a more inclusive, circle configuration? That would be just a first step of course

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 9
It is interesting to read this chapter today because no later than last night I was talking with my pastor back home on the phone and he was asking me if I would be willing to participate and think about a other way to do the service. And I was sharing that idea of doing a service in which everybody would reflect about a passage or a subject and would take a week to produce a piece of art related to it. The service in itself would then just be everyone sharing their piece of art and explaining it to the others. I think that creativity has to be brought back in Church and worship.

Stokes Chapter 1:

This first chapter is really technical about how to lead a media or cultural research. The author brings us through different steps and teaches us how to choose a subject, how to do researches, how to study our subject and how to plan things. To be honest I don’t see how this can talk to my church. This book is really academic and I don’t think that that kind of study is done in church. Maybe the Church can benefit from such studies but they are not the ones that are going to do them.

02/18

I see a good potential for the church to develop some activities through the use of internet tools such as blogs and wiki. It is interesting because I started using those tools a few month ago and the class brings words to what I'm giong through by using them. By the way, I opened an event to pray about the church in Europe on facebook, and I'm really surprised by the impact this event has and the many responses we get on the page.

02/16

The emerging church in UK is very inspiring to me in my context. Belgium is done with church in a traditional way and I think we have a lot to learn from what has been done in UK. However the spiritual climate is different and the Belgian Church is gonna face different challenges, but I believe there is a good tomorrow ahead. I pray that people in the Church will be sensible to what moves our society and our culture and that they can apply an adaptation of those things for the church, or an adaptation of the church to those things...(like the example of club culture in UK)

What my church might learn from this chapter: week 7

Barker: Chapter 13
I think one of the major problem of the Church in Europe today, or at least in France and belgium, is to address the youth, and especially the one that include themselves in a certain youth subculture that adults don't understand. I think it would be interesting for the church to have a closer look at those subcultures and the youth of today in a way to understand what their conception of the church is and to be able to include them and walk with them.

Barker: Chapter 14
IN this last chapter, we see that Cultural studies englobe many things like politics, systems of power, public spheres etc... Those are things that the church should take in consideration as well in its thinking about its environment, the places it wants to settle and the people it wants to address. A church is never addressing an individual in itself because that individual is part of a wider group of people, with specific heritage, ethnicity, sub-culture, ...

Smith: Chapter 5
It is important to realize how the modern evangelical church has set aside any kind of tradition and practices of the ancient churches (Catholic or Orthodox). I think a way for the church today is to find a common ground were those traditions and practices can meet our contemporary culture. I am fascinated by monastic disciplines and think that my generation is coming back more and more to those. The church should be ready to take its place on the history line, to be aware of where it comes from and what formed it to be able to face the future and impact it's surrounding.

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 4
I think that the split between sacred and secular is something damagable to our spirituality today. As it is written in this chapter, this heritage from modernity has divided our life in different sphere that are now difficult to put back together. It is my search today to re-unite my entire self, and I think that this process should be personal as well as communal in order to be able to live a community life that embrace every aspect of our lives. People are in search of wholeness and integrity,...and the church has to be the place where they can find that.

Gibbs and Bolger: Chapter 5

The conception of community is quite different in the emmerging church as it is in my church. Even if there is a good sense of community, I am not sure that most of us see the church as a way of life in stead of as a weekly meeting(s) form. What I would like to start in my city is an intentional community that is rooted in social contacts and that walks together in seeking the kingdom of God. I don't think this kind of community can be started from a classical form of church...howeverm I think that people can be part of it and at the same time attend their congregational church.

02/11

My question about an online church like the one in Second Life is the one of relationship. Isn't the church supposed to be the family of God? How can you relate to your brothers and sisters behind a screen. It is proved that most of the communication we have with other is through behavior, non-verbal signals...I think that we are missing the main point of the communication if all that interact are avatars that you shape the way you want.

02/09

Church, a fan club? well when you think about it (thing that I've never done in that way) why not. In the church you usually have two type of persons, the ones who come and don't get involved (the spectators) and the ones who jump into it and take part in the work (the fan). Those fan are the ones who are gonna try to re-think chrismas, passover and other special days every year in a different way. They are the one who will come to the work day to fix teh building, who will not only come on sunday morning but also teach kids, play music, run the soundboard,...

What my church might learn from this chapter: week 6

Barker: Chapter 11
The first time I heard about a Church in "second life" I was pretty chocked. How can a community be online?...how can we live fellowship through a keyboard and a screen? Even if I still don't get it all, I understand the important place of cyber media in our western culture, and I think the church, in stead of rejecting it should be willing to use it in an intelligent way. Thinks like blogs, wikis...offer an opportunity to connect with people in a unique way and to share idea and information that would stay isolated otherwise.

Barker: Chapter 12

It is important for a church who want to have an effective impact, to be able to read the city or neighboorhood it is located in. The analysis of the social spaces, the power at work, the movements of people etc are keypoint to a good ministry in the core of a city. For example, in Europe, one would want to know were the social life happens, where the part of the population the ministry is aimed at gather (bars, cultural centers, sport club, etc...

Smith: Chapter 4.
Our evangelical background has put aside all kind of spiritual formation/discipline, excusing it by the fact that "faith is a personal matter". But as Smith analyses it, spiritual practices are found in our culture and has an effect on us, wether we want it or not. The goal of the church should then be to bring counter-discipline, counter spiritual formation. I think that we have a whole lot to learn from the fathers of the church and the monastic tradition, and I feel that more and more peoples of my generation feel like returning to those traditions.

Gibbs/Bolger: Chapter 2.
The question of denomination and labels is an important one in the US, a less important one in Europe I think. Anyway, the fact that most emerging churchs are willing to define itself as "and" or "with" in stead of as "against"is a good question for me in my future ministry and in my place in the church.
The definition of Emerging Church by Gibbs and Bolger gives a good idea and put words on what I would like to pursue while going back to Belgium. This chapter makes me aware of the tension bestween this and the tradition, the modern church our culture.

Gibbs/Bolger: Chapter 3.
The emerging church's will to replace Jesus' life at the center of their message is something that strike me. The church has to take its missionnal place in the community, in the city, in the country. That shift from a "bringing-in" church to a "living-out" church sounds so real to me and my reading of the Gospel. The church needs to be real to its contemporaries, it needs to propose a way of life instead of dogmas and dry beliefs. I think that this is what people are looking for today: something real, even if it can be hard in some ways, but real.

04/04

The fan culture is something interesting to me in the sense that I've never been a real fan. I've been a pretty intense spectator, but don't think I ever brought it to the fan level. It's a culture that I find funny in a way (so much time involved in a TV show, movie or game sounds a waste for me) and in an other way that calls me to think about the passions in my life and the way I am dedicated to them.

02/02

A Structuralist view of things implies that everything can be understood as a set of rules. For example, to understand a western movie, one does not need to watch a specific movie but to understand the general set of rules that makes a western movie. I think that this theory has its limitation in a way that it excludes the narrrative of specifique persons when it come to understand such or such culture. While the narrative is so much important in understanding what surrounds us.