Last night, a bunch of us got together for the first Emmaus Road Emergent Cohort gathering up at Mark’s house in the city. It was a great time of food, friends, and conversation.

I had a great conversation with a pastor from the Salinas area that had some great ideas about doing church in a new way. We also got to chatting about technology and how some of the things that have been happing with software and the web could be revealing hints about what is happening to the church and the way people relate to it. During the conversation, he mentioned that there is a church inside of the on-line game Everquest. The church meets regularly inside the game and is sanctioned by the Southern Baptists. I have heard of folks selling Everquest items on ebay, but this was a new twist. One of my coworkers in a previous job at work purchased a special item from ebay for the game. It was rumored that the transaction was $1000+. It is interesting how “real” these games have become. They have spawned commerce for virtual items and even churches. I wonder if he has ever visited a service…

Two conversations took shape after dinner. One on a life of intentionality in pursuit of the way of Jesus and another imagining new wine skins for seeking the kingdom of God. I participated in the second conversation with the friends that traveled up with me. Dave was guiding the conversation and started us off with a great suggestion that he received from a friend. He shared with us how a friend had mentioned to him that it is ok to start off deconstructing the church (struggling with it’s structures, dificiences, problems, etc) but it is not ok to stay there. The idea being that at some point, you need to move beyond the deconstruction and start becoming part of the solution. I agree. It is easy to criticize, but harder to do something positive about it. We then moved on to sharing our dreams for the church and/or our lives in the church. There was some discussion on new ways of doing church, on inspiring and teaching the next generation of Quakers, on the unity of the church, on new visions of family and neighbors, and much more.

To see some photos from the night, check out Mark’s blog. If you would like to find out more on the local Emergent cohort, see Emmaus Road blog.