Baltimore Emergent Cohort Meeting - 6 April 2010

Greetings on the beautifully sunny, and somewhat windy afternoon of the last day of March. Just a brief reminder that our next Baltimore Emergent Cohort gathering is scheduled for 7:30 PM, Tuesday, 6 Apr 2010. As most of you know we've been meeting at Austin Grill on Boston Avenue for some time now. With the beginning of warmer weather, however, Austin Grill has begun their open mic series on Tuesday evenings, the noise of which tends to overwhelm the Cohort discussion. So, for this month only we'll be meeting at Pasticcio restaurant in the Can Company, just a few doors down from Austin Grill.

Starting in May we'll be moving the venue to Teavolve Cafe & Lounge in Harbor East (1401 Aliceanna St. Baltimore, MD 21231). Good space, yummy food, and a laid back atmosphere make this a terrific choice for our monthly event. More about this in our next update.

Last month we looked at an article by Sara Miles, who gave her perspective on what living within diverse communities means, or should mean to Christians regardless of denomination. This month we continue our discussion of church and community with an article from Kathy Escobar, a co-pastor at the The Refuge, a rather eclectic faith community in north Denver. Kathy characterizes herself as "... passionate about community, the marginalized, healing, spiritual transformation, equality, justice, 'church', relationships, diversity, and learning to love and be loved." That probably sounds rather familiar given the sort of discussions we've been having about community, but Kathy has something to say when it comes to the differences between what we generally think of as church and alternatively, healthy communities, and she's fairly convinced that the latter is considerably more involved.

http://kathyescobar.com/2010/01/14/the-difference-between-cultivating-communities-and-building-churches/

We love to hear your comments on Kathy's article and any associated thoughts you might have on cultivating viable, long term Christian community. Hope to see you Tuesday!

Maryland Cohort Meeting - 18 March 2010

Here's a meeting notice from our good friends at the Maryland Cohort, who meet south of us in Columbia:

The Maryland Cohort will be meeting up again on Thursday, March 18th at 7:00 pm, at Donna's on Snowden River Pkwy. in Columbia. Address is 5850 Waterloo Rd., Ste. 100, 21045; website is www.donnas.com. We'll be discussing Brian McLaren's latest book A New Kind of Christianity.

And just a reminder that Brian will be at St. Mary's in Roland Park on Monday the 15th for a workshop during the day, and for a lecture that evening. Although over 100 people are already signed up for the workshop there are still a few spaces available. For more information go to www.stmarys.edu/ei.

Brian McLaren speaking @ Ecumenical Institute of Theology 15 March 2010

Emergent-church leader, prolific author, chair of the board of Sojourners, and former pastor Brian McLaren will be speaking at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary’s Seminary & University on Monday, March 15, 2010. He will present a day-long seminar for pastors and other church leaders, and then give a free public lecture that evening entitled “The Gospel, the Post-Modern Conversation, and the Church that Is Emerging.” Thankfully the evening event was moved from a smaller venue to allow a larger crowd to attend. Accordingly, we've been told that more seats are available, so if you're interested please make arrangements as soon as possible.

You can get more information at http://www.stmarys.edu/ei/.

You'll find the flyer announcing these events at http://www.stmarys.edu/ei/Brian%20McLaren%20Online%20Brochure.pdf. The third page of this flyer is the registration form. The fourth page, which announces the public lecture, is suitable for printing and using as a poster. Please consider attending either or both events yourself, and feel free to spread the word about this exceptional opportunity.