(Ir)religiosity

My friend Matt Scott is starting a new blog consortium and emergent collective.  Open Table Theology will be an place to foster diverse theological conversation and hopefully an outlet for voices — important and interesting voices, to be sure — that might not otherwise be heard amidst the noise of social media.

You can read more of Matt’s thoughts on the project here and here.

The idea is to gather together a diverse group of persons who are interested in creating an participating in open theological conversation about a wide variety of topics.  You don’t have to be a blogger to participate.  You should have to be someone who has something to share.

A new theme/topic will be selecting each month beginning in June.  There’s really no limit to contribution at this point.  Submissions will be posted and hopefully a thoughtful and engaging conversation will be sparked and continue for the duration of the month.

So here’s the deal. These sorts of things only work well if people participate.  We need contributors! If you’re interested stop by and sign up and you will receive and email from Matt with instructions.  If you don’t want to be a steady contributor add the Open Table RSS feed to your feed reader so you can join in the conversation once it gets going.  The more people we have involved the richer and more engaging the conversation will be.  So check it out!

Today, on Epiphany, a new social network, called Missional Tribe has been launched.  I’m pretty excited.  Here’s a short description of the network taken directly from the site.

The tribe …

… offers a collaborative space to connect people and generate an accepting, supportive community that intentionally seeks for diversity.

… fosters dialogue in a respectful environment and gathers grassroots stories for mutual encouragement, teaching, and support.

… focuses on serving practitioners through resources, ideas, and stories from the front lines of incarnational engagement and radical transformation.

… shares the nitty-gritty of living our faith and sharing our life in order to break anyone’s sense of isolation on this journey, especially when a virtual support network may be the only community currently available.

… creates an “evergreen” space to capture and continue the collective wisdom of those seeking to pursue Christlikeness, stewarding it in ways that will keep it accessible beyond the first generation of participants.

… encourages using the website as a social space for befriending people of similar (or opposite!) interests, as a discussion space for interactive learning, and as an archive space for links and materials that might otherwise be forgotten.

… engages in discussion of any topic about the missional journey, with a minimum of gate keeping and oversight to maintain it as a safe place for all so that nothing would be off limits except for bullying or belittling others.

… celebrates both individual and communal expressions of a missional paradigm, and constantly seeks to broaden its demographic reach because of its commitment to embrace and learn from the diversity in Christ’s Kingdom.

Although most descriptions of who and what the tribe is were stated in the positive, there is a place for stating some of what the tribe is not, or does not do.

In the tribe …

… it’s not about methods, but about our paradigm and lifestyle.

… it’s not about polishing theory or theology in attempts to get it perfect, but about our movement forward in our practice of a missional lifestyle.

… it’s not about control or ownership by the few, but about empowering each of us to participate responsibly.

… it’s not about celebrities, but about us as everyday disciples.

Well.  Now I’m even more excited.  This is exactly the sort of thing I’m into.  A decentralized, non-hierarchical, grassroots community of collaborators sharing thoughts and ideas.  This has really, really great potential.

You can read more about the Tribe and it’s inception at the site here.  Sonja Andrews, who blogs at Ravine of Light,  has written a great post about it as well.  You can read that here.

And — while you’re at it, go ahead and join the Tribe!  Seriously.  Go ahead.

Time to roll my sleeves up…