Amazing Converging Women!
Are you coming to Convergence? In some "preconference spirit", let's get this ball rolling by sharing a little bit about ourselves. Leave a comment with whatever you'd like to let folks know about you!
I know we're all looking forward to gathering this weekend. Blessings to you all!
posted by Aj Schwanz @ 8:34 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
Hi all - I'm Julie. I'm a mom and a church planter in the Chicago area.
I've been involved in the emerging conversation for a few years now. It has expanded my faith as well as taught me a lot about myself. Our church plant is generally emerging - at least mostly influenced by lot of the ideas being explored.
I spend most of my time chasing around my two year old - Emma. She is full of energy and the joy of discovering her world. When I have free time I like to read (theology, history, fantasy...) and blog. I love the interaction the blog world gives and have a lot of fun out there.
I attended the Emerging Women Midwest Re-gathering last spring and my time there really served to awaken me. I had been in mommy survival mode for over a year and that gathering help me jump start my mind again. I began considering issues of theology and ministry again, I began exploring gender related issues, and I began to write and be more involved in local groups. My husband runs our local Emergent cohort that I attend and enjoy for the chance to discuss with others of like mind. I got involved with other Emerging Women stuff as well. I have lots of fun and meet some wonderful women at the Emerging Women blog which I moderate. I helped out with the East Coast Gathering last fall and am organizing the upcoming Midwest Gathering for emerging women this spring. I'm really excited to get to come out and see what's going on out in the NW and meet people I heard great things about!
I'm looking forward to next week - see you there.
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Julie, I enjoyed reading your post and checked out the Emerging Women Blog. What a fascinating group of women and discussions. I got the impression no one would have a problem with me hanging out in the Tai Chi community. So nice. I'm looking forward to meeting you.
My name is Aj Schwanz. I live in Dundee, OR, with my hubby, my toddler, and an assortment of animals.
While I attend Newberg Friends Church, I've become interested in the emerging "conversation" (or whatever it's being called at the moment) after I had my son. I realized none of my friends from youth group attended church. They consider themselves to be "spiritual," but they're not finding what they're looking for in a traditional worship gathering. So I started looking for folks who experienced the same, and I found myself here!
Having grown up with a Quaker background, I've always been affirmed as a leader - gender has never been an issue. But in connecting with other emerging women leaders, I've found their stories to be very different. I hope to affirm women in their callings - whatever calling that might be - and share resources that might help equip and empower them to continue to be faithful in that call.
I'm eager to hear the stories of others and to dream about "where to go from here": to recognize where God is moving and to question how we might be a part.
Hello, I am Paula and I am so excited to be joining you this weekend.
I became aware of the emerging conversation just a couple of years ago. I was drawn to the concepts because of my own increasing dissatisfaction witht the 'status quo'. I now believe that the Lord used it to reveal more about my dissatisfaction about myself in my relationship with Him than my dissatisfaction with the church.
Regardless, many of the facets of this 'movement' not to mention many of the proponents of it, have challenged me in my faith and I contintue to be challenged. I look forward to gathering with you this weekend and dreaming with you and learning from you. See you this weekend.
Hi everyone -- my name is Sarah, and I'm a Portlander. I am part of the leadership of the Evergreen Community, an emerging-type church plant that currently meets in the Lucky Lab pub on Hawthorne. Part of my current journey is growing into the role of being an elder in our community. I am the first woman to serve in that capacity, so at times I feel a little conspicuous. :)
I am also a newlywed -- married less than two months! -- so I'm just in the beginning of learning how to be a wife and partner to my husband, Jonathan.
Some of my key spiritual formation occurred while I worked on staff of a large (yes, mega) church in Salem, OR for five years, and then continued during my short stint at L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland.
I look forward to meeting you all!
Reading everyone’s intro is making me really excited about this weekend!
My name is Marta. I live in Sherwood and go to Newberg Friends Church with AJ who already introduced herself. I’m also the daughter-in-law of Gaylie who will also be converging with us.
My husband Andy and I just celebrated 11 years of marriage. I grew up as an Air Force brat and experience three idyllic years in England as a child. I grew up in Southern Baptist churches but was encouraged in ministry by a strong mother and professors at a Southern Baptist university – Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. I was further affirmed by colleagues at George Fox University where I worked for 9 years in campus ministry and multicultural services.
I’ve been “at home” full-time for a year and a half with our five-year-old daughter Gabriela and our two-year-old son Jonah. One of the biggest things I’m learning in this journey of parenting is that my identity is in belonging to Jesus rather than belonging to an occupation. I’m becoming more comfortable identifying myself with God’s passions and callings than with official job titles and official paychecks.
Over the past year and a half God has awakened me to his passion for justice. Andy and I are involved as “justice advocates” (volunteers) for an incredible organization called International Justice Mission. Last year we went to Thailand with a group of students from Westside Christian High School where Andy is the principal. The school is partnering with an orphanage home that is on the prevention side of the sex trafficking industry – identifying at-risk young people and giving them a loving home and education.
I discovered the emerging church conversation about a year and half ago and the more I read and talk with others about it, the more I’m drawn to it. I love the band Switchfoot. I too enjoy having a blog. And I’m slowly making my way through the extensive dessert menu at Papa Hayden’s.
Hi All! My name is Carley Friesen. I am the associate pastor at Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church in Portland. I ran into Emergent 5 or 6 years ago when I began to be restless with doing church the same old way. Don't get me wrong. I love the church. But the church as we know it is not connecting with the people of my community. The church is becoming irrelevant. But Jesus is not irrelevant. So how do we help people cross the bridge into a relationship with the living God? When I discovered the emergent conversation, I began to find people asking this same kind of question. When I read Brian McLaren's, A Generous Orthodoxy, I felt like I had found someone on the same path with me. We share so many of the spiritual "feeder streams" he describes! Now I have added my own contacts with yoga, Buddhist friends, healers, Unitarians and others folks who are spiritual, but not "religious." But among these there is a hunger for gathering, discussion, community, even liturgy -- a sense of the holy. You know all this....
Anyway, for various reasons, I believe God is calling me to do ministry in this new world. The time is now. I am in the process of writing proposals, talking to the church board, working with our presbytery's new church development team, etc., to find a way to get this new ministry organized. I have a couple of groups already gathered -- one around food and spiritual conversation, another around healing from divorce. The Spirit is powerful in both groups. Now I am trying to find a way to reproduce, link or in some way help more people connect with the Light of the World.
I am single (divorced), with three children - one boy is a junior at Whitworth College and twin girls who are seniors in high school. Since they are all practically "out of the nest," I have a chance to get out of the nest as well. I live in Newberg now, but will move to Portland this summer and get out into whatever new life God has prepared for me at that time. It is exciting to be in the second half of life, getting a fresh start, fresh wind in my sails.
I am particularly interested in hearing from others women who have started new ministries. I do not feel like I fit the stereotype of the "New Church Development Pastor." So I'm not sure how this will work. The books don't talk about alternative styles very much. But there must be another way....
See you soon.
Hi all! My name is Lydia and I live in Hillsboro, west of Portland, and attend Sunset Presbyterian Church.
I have a 14 month daughter and teach high school English part-time. My main ministry focus right now is co-leading a ministry called A Hidden Hurt which provides small groups and an 11-week class for women who are in relationship with (ie: married to, divorcing from, or dating) sex addicts. Life is full right now!
I came across this conference when I had a brief & rare moment of time to browse the internet. I had just finished reading A Generous Orthodoxy - one of the only books I've read in the last year and a half that's not about pregnancy/parenting/my particular ministry area or for book club. It was exciting to read that as it recharged my interest in all things emergent, which started about four years ago when my husband and I met with others to consider ways to integrate the emergent movement into our church. Anyways, the "coincidence" of reading the book...looking at emergentvillage...finding this conference and having it be in Portland in a few weeks was very exciting to me.
I am excited to engage in a conversation about faith, church, Christ and the world that is bigger than my corner of the universe, and also excited for personal connections with other women and with Christ that are not based on my role or the next task before me.
I'm sure the week will fly by - see you soon!
I can’t wait to stop by this weekend. I only wish that I could stay for the whole conference (I’ll be coming home Sat from a business trip). I hang my hat at evergreen where I submit to the leadership of the conspicuous elder Sarah Zollner. Until recently, my passions have been evangelism and development of sustaining economic systems that alleviate poverty. Now, my passion is for 3 kids that my husband and I are adopting. I wrote our story on our community’s forum here: http://www.evergreenlife.org/web/boards/index.php?topic=930.0
I grew up Quaker, hung out for a while with suburban mega churches before going to church in a bar.
Although I’m prone to speak, I’m eager to listen and learn this weekend.
See you Saturday!
Hello - My name is Ann. I am a leader in a churchplanting organization called Christian Associates International. I have just moved with my family to Portland after 17 years in The Netherlands. I am married to Dan and we have two beautiful teenage daughters. During our time there we went to school, worked with international students and started a church called Crossroads. We have been on a long faith journey exploring emerging culture in Europe and its implications for the church. Contact with people like Brian Maclaren, Len Sweet, the 24/7 movement and more recently Alan and Deb Hirsch have hugely impacted us. Currently we are participating in a community called Mosaic and praying about launching some missional iniatives to serve our neighbourhood of Woodstock. I look forward to connecting with and learning from all of you this weekend!
I can't wait to meet everyone!
Ann - my husband and I actually candidated with CAI, its a great group. Our plan at the time was to join the Cady's in Madrid. Going through the SCO week with CAI really helped steer us toward the emerging conversation as well as being one of the best spiritual experiences in my adult life.
I am also so excited to get to meet everyone! It looks like this is going to be a great group of women who love Jesus and want to serve their community! My name is Liz, my husband, Aaron, and I live here in Portland. My husband is enrolled in Multnomah Biblical Seminary working towards his M. Div. I stay at home with our two kids, Sarah who is 18 months and Justus who is 6 months. Life for me right now is a rotation of diaper changes, feedings and naps...I must say this weekend will be a sort of vacation!! My husband and I have been having conversations about the emergent church and missional communitites for the past couple of years. He has led the way by reading so many great books and listening to countless N.T. Wright and Rob Bell sermons. I have been a sort of eager student chomping at the bit with my "well, let's just do it" mentality...even though most of the time I'm not exactly sure what "it" looks like! I am looking forward to hearing everyone's experiences and insites!!
Hi. My name is Maureen and I live west of Portland but technically not in Hillsboro. Lydia told me about the conference, and I think it's safe to say that we have a common start to our interest in things emergent; I was part of that group with her husband and others, discussing ways to keep "church" relevant in a postmodern world (I said it, the P-word!). God brought me a husband who had a similar interest in the emergent church and who had attended a couple of the emergent conventions, back when they had them.
I spend my days at a PR firm, and many of my non-working hours involved in various ways at Oak Hills Church, where my husband is the youth pastor. This past fall, my husband and one of his good friends, with myself and several others, started a group to encourage dialogue among those with an emergent mindset and to try to draw in church "refugees" (e.g. the "spiritual" youth group alums that AJ refers to). One of the key values of this community is intergenerational worship and discussion; the goal is to encourage people who attend traditional, denominational churches to make a difference in their own churches, rather than abandoning these churches to die off with the older generations. It's an interesting challenge that I'd love to discuss with some of you!
Maureen, I can't wait to hear some of your ideas. Ladies, it sounds like there is going to be some amazing energy. See you in a few hours!
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