Presbymergent’s Web site describes itself (www.presbymergent.org) as an “online community for those who live in both the Presbyterian [PC(USA)] and Emergent/emerging church worlds and want to try and find a balance between the two.” More unique, perhaps, than the fact that this group gathered together, was just this: the way it gathered together. Many who participated or interacted were not actually a part of the Coordinating Group, and not physically present in Louisville for the meeting. Take, for instance, PC(USA) Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, who participated in the discussion though he happened to be physically present in Asia.
The Coordinating Group’s meeting began with a time of open source praying, singing, worship, sharing, hoping, and storytelling, according to the twitterfeed, #pmergent, coming from the event. It was ustreamed, and the @ responses came from far and near. In fact, there was so much online and instantaneous reporting of the event as it was happening that some, not in Louisville, wondered who was left in the meeting room to make the eye contact with the other real people in the room.
Whether you know what twitter is, or are a regular tweeter, whether your iPhone appears to be connected to your person or you don’t see what’s wrong with your very functional rotary dialer, the point is not the technology, believe it or not. The point is the connection. The community. The relationship. And of course, the open, participatory nature of it all.
The group, true to the presby part of its name, did take time to break into groups (let’s be honest, we’re Presbyterian, they’re committees, commented one participant) to discuss real, practical, tangible issues such as becoming a 501c3, structure, and even polity.
But it also offered a model for the broader church of potentially new ways of “doing church” or being church or at least coming together in ways that use new media and technology for the benefit of community. Sure, these new ways might seem a bit, well, a bit chaotic to some more used to Robert’s Rules. But for a church that seeks to engage a changing world and the generations who are beginning to take that world for granted, perhaps Presbymergent can offer some help along the way.
