Sunday, November 25, 2007

Rising from The Ashes: Rethinking Church by NYC's Becky Garrison

Rising from The Ashes: Rethinking Church is available in at many Barnes & Noble bookstores, select Episcopal and other church bookstores and Amazon.com (US and UK).

The NYC church leaders interviewed for this book:
Elise Brown, Advent Lutheran/Common Ground (http://www.myspace.com/advent_commonground)
Isaac Everett (www.isaaceverett.com)
Jahneen Otis (http://www.jahneen.com>
Rev. Kevin Bean/Rev. Elizabeth Garnsey, St. Bart's Church (http://www.stbarts.org)
Nancy Hannah, Calvary/St. George's Episcopal Church (http://stgeorgesnyc.dioceseny.org)
Rt. Rev. Catherine Roskam, Episcopal Diocese of New York
Marilyn Haskel, St. Paul's Chapel (http://www.trinitywallstreet.org)

Also, the Latino Leadership Circle is listed in the resource guide (http://latinoleadershipcircle.typepad.com)

If anyone would like to check out any of these leader's services, email Becky Garrison (bgthedoor@aol.com) and we'll arrange a time to get together.

* Press Release *

RISING FROM THE AHES: RETHINKING CHURCH TAKES AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT
EMERGING WORSHIP FOCUSING ON MAINLINE LITERGICAL CHURCHES

This First American Look at the Subject Features Contributions
from Many Leading Thinkers on the Topic

NEW YORK (September 7, 2007) – Author Becky Garrison describes her new book, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury), as a “salon where voices come to the table” to discuss ways to reach those for whom church is not in their vocabulary.

The alternative worship/emerging church movement has been underway in various incarnations throughout the UK for more than twenty years, and has impacted the U.S. evangelical community since the 1990s. However, these influences are just now beginning to emerge within the mainline liturgical churches. What impact do these new ways of worshiping God have on the contemporary mainline church?

Rising from the Ashes engages these questions through interwoven oral history-style interviews with people working with mainline churches who at the forefront of exploring what it means to “be” the Church in the 21st century. Several worship leaders who do not self-identify with the emerging church movement are also included.

The diverse array of voices range from High Church Celtic Christians to Evangelical Anglicans, as well as a few spiritual souls who consider themselves to be post-church. The contributors to this book include: Diana Butler Bass, Jonny Baker, Kester Brewin (Signs of Emergence), Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, Peter Rollins, Phyllis Tickle, Karen Ward (Church of the Apostles, Seattle), and NT Wright.

About the Author: Becky Garrison's first book Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: (Jossey Bass, April 2006) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her book The New Atheist Crusaders and their Unholy Grail will be released by Thomas Nelson in January 2008. She began writing for The Wittenburg Door in 1994 and currently serves as Senior Contributing Editor. Her additional writing credits include work for The Ooze, God’s Politics blog, Christian Retailing, Prism, Stackpole Books, Bibal Press, Episcopal Life, and The Living Church.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Cohort Tuesday - We don't need to read it!

We are going to discuss a book we haven't even read!

The Cohort this Tuesday will discuss Pete Rollins book, How (not) To Speak of God - and most of us haven't even read it! What you say?? That's right, we have been having book discussions on well known emergent books by reading reviews and short excerpts - are we academically challenged? No, just super busy and we recognize all of you are too, so we're making it easy. After one of the dialogs, you might find that you can't wait to read the book, or that you got enough and you can budget that precious time for another book.

I would say this has been the book that has been the most talked about and created the most excitement in emerging church circles in the last few years. It is a true work of new emerging theology. Brian Mclaren wrote the forward and gushed in his praise for it. I am hearing it's ideas seeping about in emerging conversations, and feeling it affecting my thinking regularly in some areas, or beginning a process of challenging me and making me think in others - and I haven't even read the book! I've read so many brief reviews or heard people talking about it that I've kind of gleaned some of it's main ideas - you know a book is good when that happens.

But you are all just as busy or more than me, so you also may have not read it - so below are a few reviews to link to, but especially an excerpt from the publisher.

Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 6:30pm

Origins Church Office
581 9th Ave #3B (corner of 42nd and 9th Ave.)
above the papaya dog.
Enter next to the hotdog place on 9th ave.
look for the ORIGINS poster in the door and buzz number 3B...


Reviews:

The best I think is to read this excerpt of the book: http://site.paracletepress.com/samples/exc-hownot_a01.pdf

Here's a good blog review, you have to link to his five posts on the book - so I won't reprint them all in this email.
http://ifgodislove.blogspot.com/2007/01/reading-how-not-to-speak-of-god.html

Here's a short one, not very comprehensive:
http://www.bethquick.com/2006/11/review-how-not-to-speak-of-god-by.html


Here's the link to the Next-Wave Ezine review:
http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue97/index.cfm?id=20&ref=ARTICLES_REVIEWS_307


--
The Cohort Team