As I’ve explored the sense of call I feel both to the emerging church movement and to the United Methodist Church, I’ve often felt the “chafing” that leads many emergent-types to declare that postmodernity simply cannot exist within an organization as modern as the UMC.  I still feel deep in my gut, though, that postmodernity not only CAN emerge from within organizations like this one, indeed it is most healthy if it stays connected to it.  Therefore, I believe that a big part of my call is to be a sort of “postmodernity gardner,” doing all I can to nurture the signs of postmodernity I see emerging all around me.  The details of that I might go into later, but today I want to explore an observation I’ve had sitting here at the Annual Conference of the Kansas West Conference of the UMC.

One of the true hallmarks of the postmodern church (indeed of the church of any age) is true, authentic community.  The term I like is common in the emergent conversation: generative friendship.  (I vaguely remember hearing that Tim Keel coined the term???)  In other words, friendship that generates, that naturally works to create life within and outside of the individuals and the community.

One of the great things about Annual Conference is the “family reunion” aspect of it.  Most of the people here haven’t seen their closest friends/colleagues in a year, and so the bond of friendship is incredibly strong and very, very apparent.  It doesn’t spread much beyond the clergy into the laity (probably because of the “colleague” nature of it), but there is at least the beginning of this communal friendship spilling over into others.

But here’s the issue as I see it– most of it is not generative.  It is a very, very supportive friendship, but I see little “generated” from it.  Sure there are pockets of generative-ness, but as a whole it is more sustaining than life-giving, at least from my admittedly limited perspective.

If I am to fulfill what I see as a call to help postmodernity emerge from this Conference, one thing I don’t question is that it cannot be a “top down” leadership thing.  That puts me, who is much closer to the bottom, in the perfect place to effect positive change.  The idea I am playing with is, “How can I help move this wonderful, beautiful community to a place that is more generative?”  That in itself would be a tremendous force to move the Conference toward postmodernity.

I don’t quite know how to answer that yet, but perhaps the best way is simply to move “hallway conversations” away from the superficial, “catching up” nature they usually take, and instead instigate informal conversations about deeper matters, like for instance theological ways to think about whatever happens to be going on.

Just a few thoughts.  All I really know is that this community means a great deal to me, and nothing would make me happier than to see it move to the next level of being a truly creative force for the hundreds of churches that make it up– and to see it become a creative, life-giving force for the transitioning culture of our time.

I have lots of other thoughts from Annual Conference that will probably never make it to my blog (such as the incredible disconnect between a denomination crying out in pain from decline and an Annual Conference that spends it’s time celebrating– denial, anyone?), but here’s some food for thought.

I love Annual Conference.