Liquid @ NCCC
Just returned home after the Liquid Day at NCCC - must say I was dissappointed.The first session had input by three people, - Stephen Said (neurotribe.net) , Leighton Tebay (the heretic.com) and Marke Syares (Forge) give a short 3 point intro each on Justice, Spirituality and Culture respectively. The points they made were very good, but unfortunately they were not given the opportunity to open them up (less than 10 minutes for an intro and three points!).
Stephen: JUSTICE
1. The False seperation of Private & Social Transformation
2. From Protest to alternatives
- many people know and can articulate) what they are against, but few know (or can articulate) what they are for.
3. True Vocational Options
- the potential role of transformational businesses ( a matter I want to discuss further with Stephen)
Leighton: SPIRITUALITY
1. From Event to Engagement
- participation is more important than presentation
2. From Formula to Formation
- not a 5 minute marriage courtship, but a slow development of a long term relationship
3. Embrasing the Mystery
- not everything is knowable, nor should we try to explain everything.
Mark: CULTURE
1. Acknowledge (and name) Implicit Religion
- Religion of 'Hyper-reality' - marketers' use of peace / Family / Community/ etc - but its failing is that it cannot deliver heaven on earth
2. Liquidity
- Society is fluid, not just changing cultures, but people move jobs, change communities, move to different countries
3. D.I.Y - in Renovation / making home movies / file-sharing / etc
- they will not need permission to DIY 'church'.
After a bit of discussion almost all taken up on the theme of individualism, we then broke into 5 groups to share thoughts and ideas on specific topics that the whole group had nominated during Afternoon tea.
This is where I feel things fell in a hole. There were no prepared moderators and thus our group, instead of fine-tuning the question, opened it up so widely you could have discussed it for months before you began to achieve anything. This was not just my view. I encourage four members of our Church Strategy team to attend, and the one (who attended a different group) whom I asked how things went after the second session said in a charitable voice: "I'd only give that an average, Gordon".
The plan for the evening was for more of the afternoon, so I came home.
What would I have done differnetly? I have let the three initial speakers each have ten minutes to expound each of their three points, and then had the discussion groups further enquire into and disuss the issues and questions that had been raised. The initial input was too short and thus didn't have the depth it needed.
Of course, This is one person's opinion, and I may have had the wrong end of the stick before I attended, but... I did meet Stephen Said and Leighton Tebay and a couple of others which was good.
posted by GordonG @ Wednesday, February 09, 2005
5 Comments:
I would have liked to attend this one, mostly because I have never had a face to face with other missional, emergent Christians and I would have expected it to be stimulating.
Steve's second point is one that I used to find frustrating when I first ran up against it myself, so I guess that one stands out for me.
Leighton's spirituality wuold have been of interest as spirituality is so brushed over in the church generally yet fundamental to a connection with God. So I would have liked to hear where he went with this one.
There may have been a survey at the close of the day guaging how they went as is usual for this sort of thing. Perhaps the organisers would do well to get your feedback.
Thank you for your last post clarifying your points further.
Garth
Hi Gordon,
good to read your comments - thanks for that. We actually did a survey this evening and others had a chance to feedback their thoughts so I'll make sure yours get added into the mix. This being the first time we put such an event together (and having had to change the format at the last minute) we know there is a lot we can learn for next time and we hoped that people would be patient and help make the day a success through their participation.
Let me respond to and reflect upon your reflections if I may.
- I too really enjoyed the first session of the three sharing. I thought it got the afternoon off to a good start - LT, Steve and Mark were excellent and I too could have listened to them for quite some time. However we were very intentional today about not wanting to it to be a talking head event but rather a learning together/networking and sharing journeys type time. We were trying to give people a variety of experiences that connected with the different learning styles that we all have.
- There were parts of the afternoon and night that went better than others. I know that the discussion time was frustrating for a few people but for others it actually ended up being quite a rich experience. I really enjoyed the one I participated and a number of the group I was with had some real 'lights going on' moments as we discussed incarnation.
- The evening was actually not 'more of the same'. In fact it was quite different. The first 50 minutes was story telling - 12 or so people shared the story of their emerging/missional communities and the time was filled with the stories of some pretty diverse and creative examples of communities from around Melbourne. After this time we rotated through three different worship/reflective experiences that focused upon Justice (it was a multimedia presentation using music and imagery), Culture (an interactive bible exploration using fuzzy logic) and Spirituality (a meditative reflection on a bible passage, poem and silence). Following that we gave people a chance to fill in the surveys and finished up with a bringing together of the three areas we focused upon.
- Today was designed as a 'taste' of liquid. We have been working on a 3 day Liquid conference for many months now that would have obviously been a more comprehensive time that would have included perhaps more of the type of things that you have reflected upon wanting. In not having anywhere near enough registrations to do such a conference we pulled together today in just a few weeks and attempted to give a taste of what the 3 day conference was aiming at achieving. I guess in doing so we were limited in the depth of what we could get to, but instead we were hoping to create an environment for people to bounce some ideas around and meet one another (something I don't think the many communities around our city exploring these things don't do enough of).
- I'm not sure if you're familiar with FORGE - but in reading your comments I wonder if you might enjoy the next Forge intensive which starts next Friday evening (18th) and goes through til the Sunday evening. It is also at Northern CCC but will have more, longer sessions of teaching with some great speakers including Alan and Debbie Hirsch, Mike Frost, Mark Sayers (from today) and others. It could be a little more up your alley - let me know if you want to know more about that as I can get some info to you.
I hope I haven't over responded to you or seemed like I'm on the defensive. I'll feed your thoughts back to the rest of the organising team and do appreciate your thoughts. I guess we all come at these things a little differently and so its to be expected that we'll all have a different response.
Thanks - Darren
The list of Liquid blogs is here.
nice to meet you Gordon. Thanks for posting on my new blog. Will keep on reading yours, looks very interesting.
Hey Gordon, did you go to the Forge Intensive or open nights?
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