Does anyone know about this?

So I got the flyer for this in the mail yesterday. Be the church. This conference is being held in Orlando in February. That is great place and month for someone who lives in the midwest. But what is the conference about? There is nothing on the website about the goal of conference. Most of the speakers I have never heard of. Although Sally Morgenthaler is a keynote. Spencer Burke is presenting as well as Ken Baugh. Interesting. It is cosponsered by David C. Cook. It is about being the church. Isn't the Emergent church about being the church too? Hmmmm. If anyone from Futuregen wants to elaborate that would be great.  The Emergent Convention in SD is just a couple of weeks before so a decision must be made....

 

Check it out

 

Update: A good conversation has started on Jason's blog. Check it out.

Comments

[Chris McElwee]

It is a little confusing. Somehow "emerging" has just become a label for the ladest fad church. But what I hearing is that this is not a fad but a worldview change.

Yet this conference seems to be saying we need to move beyond he label. I guess that is what the conference is about. It would be nice if they deliniated that a little further.

[Chris Green]

I know a little about this conference...It grew out of what used to be the "National Single Adult Ministry Conference" that David C. Cook used to put on. Several years ago they split the conferences into two different parts ("regular singles" vs. "young adults"). I went a couple of times and there was some pretty good stuff...nothing super-new or amazing.

truthfully, i'm pretty burned out on the whole conference scene...same stuff packaged differently. but it makes for a good trip to Orlando!

[Chris McElwee]

Yea the Orlando trip is certainly appealing, but what is the substance going to be. I would much rather go to San Diego for the emergent conference at this point.

[george]

Same old, Same Old! Only in a new package

When will man learn to remove his hands off of what Father is doing!

Peace

[Andrew Jones]

i was involved in 1999 in Florida at their convenetion - i taught a workshop wiht doug pagitt, and our emergent team were all there. Its a good conference for the mainstream church crowd - the kind that David C. cook targets to buy their books. If you dont like speakers on a big stage with their names flashing on powerpoint presentations, then this may not be the one for you - better off going to Emergent in london (Dec) or wait for a big Dallas event in March for emerging church (to be announced in a months time). For those who go to FutureGen, i highly recommend Sally Morganthaller who is always worth listening to. or check out her site at sacramentis.com

[Whitewave]

I used to work in a Christian bookstore and directed alot of David C. Cook traffic. They have a target. It is very broad, like Andrew was sayin'.

What I have found is that it is really difficult to target an audience that broad and say something at the same time. It's what happens in most groups. Once something different is said and people rally around, the practice of saying something different must sub-merge (<-- see the importance of word play here?) in order to maintain the unity of the group. So after the identity has been chosen the substance of said identity leaves the building and conformity moves in. If you look at the Label (not the gen-x, not the postmodern, not the emergent, but just church) again you see a lack of saying anything.

This is useful to them because lots of people can project whatever meaning they want onto it so you draw your broad audience and they all feel motivated. Emergent folk have projected a frustration at the problems associated with their own name onto it, but I'm guessing that the projections of the conservative evangelical crowd would be more about the return to conservativism.

It might be productive to get those two entities in the same room in order to have a convo, but I doubt that is what is intended. I really do. I think it's more probable that this is an attempt to throw water on the sacred cow B-B-Q because it's messing up the sales margin.

I'm still a bit cynical about the christian book biz, can you tell?