The center is where God is…

/ 19 December 2008

EmergentVillage just posted a series of videos of Peter Rollins and Phyllis Tickle, along with some short annotations. I haven’t had time to watch all of them, but this caught my eye:

Peter Rollins describes two of the “values” shared by those in “the emerging community”:

“suspended space” — “We try to create a space in our week, a liturgical hour, where there’s neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, Republican nor Democrat, employed nor unemployed, liberal nor conservative; where we can encounter each other at a deeper level than our mere affirmations. Not because they’re not important, but because we need to have a place where we can encounter each other at a deeper level.”

“donut structure” — “I love the idea of a community that has no center. The center is voided. The center is where God is. And we practice relational tithing and relational pastoring. ... We call this the idea that the role of the leader is to refuse to be a leader, so as to push back and get a priesthood of all believers.”

I LOVE that they are speaking in these terms! I suppose, in part, because this is what learning is about and it's a wonderful evocation of something Parker Palmer's been talking about -- and I've been trying to practice -- for years.

Fernando muses on a similar set of ideas, concluding that "I'm much more interested in being honest than right."

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