What’s this crazy idea about?
If you’re wondering what this “blog” is, you have good reason to. I’ve only shared this address to a few people as a way of collaborating and brainstorming ideas related to a bicycle trip/conversational experiment this summer.
As the idea has been evolving through various conversations, it has currently become something that can be expressed as this:
In my work with young adults and the Mennonite church, it has become extremely clear that there needs to be a space for open conversation regarding how we do “church.” I feel that our young adult peers have genuine desire to engage the church with our concerns about its direction, but have either not been granted the opportunity or not taken it.
I have been talking with a core group of young adults about riding bicycles across the USA this summer for 6-7 weeks (July-August) as an opportunity to engage open conversation regarding these concerns. The idea would include creatively recording and summarizing conversations enroute on a dynamic website which would also invite others to respond and dialog. Persons would be welcome to join and/or leave the touring group at any time, and we would like to stop at Mennonite churches across the country (at least on Sundays), sharing our voice and engaging transformative conversation.
The journey would be a call for the church to return to its true form as a movement rather than institution, and we would personify this change by becoming the movement ourselves. Hopefully the conversations communicated from this experience would also inspire movement within the broader church. (communication to create movement : movement to create communication)
We would like to see this “conversation” move across the country and then make it’s way into Paraguay (at least metaphorically) as a statement from our generation emphasizing that the church is global and must be considered as such.
Initial conversations that have occured indicate that this movement/journey/conversation would get a lot of publicity and could be used as a very effective fundraiser for AMIGOS, the youth delegate branch of Mennonite World Conference. This cause could be a way for young adults to emphasize the reality that our community is worldwide, directing financial resources that allow our emerging peers with leadership potential in the global south to be a part of the conversation in Paraguay in 2009.
Initial conversations have shown that there is no reason why this event shouldn’t happen, but I am waiting for a few days to make the first definite call for its commencement. This temporary blog can be a space to inject your creativity into this project and keep in touch with the broader planning group before a more comprehensive site comes out.
Let’s keep this going…