With the Coast Guard Chaplains

I led a productive (but humbling) training event with the men and women who serve our Coast Guard. All Coast Guard chaplains are actually Navy chaplains assigned to the Coast Guard. I have a privilege to spend two days at a Naval base in Norfolk training these chaplains in understanding emerging generations.

I used research from our upcoming research project on the younger unchruched and from a project we recently released on young adult dropouts.

I will have much more to say about this as I found it a remarkable experience with a group of deeply committed men and women.

Steve Lemke, the Emerging Church, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

I spent about 6 hours in New Orleans on my way to speak and eat frog legs in Missouri.

Steve invited me to speak on the emerging church. I spoke and then three faculty responded to my paper. (I will write more about that later.)

They had a packed house, another indication that people are interested in the subject. Here is a photo from the event:

And I look a little more intense than I probably should in this photo:

It is always good to be at New Orleans and visit with Steve Lemke, who has been an encouragement to me on my denominational journey. Steve is the provost at New Orleans and heads the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry where I serve as a "fellow."

It was a good day and I only which I could have stayed there more than 6 hours. However, I was glad that I could visit with Preston Nix, new head of the Leavell Center.

I believe the Leavell Center and New Orleans Seminary are bright spots in my denomination.

Rodney Hammer and Central Europe

I talked to Rodney this week from his office in Prague. Much like my recent trip to Barcelona, I will be taking some pastors to Eastern Eurpose in the October. We will be centered in Krakow and will focus on how to reach emerging postmodern generations in Central Europe.

Shoot an email to research@lifeway.com if you are a pastor reaching people in emerging culture here and want to help reach emerging generations there.

Jack Allen and Facebook

Well, I am little behind and am trying to catch up on Facebook. Facebook. I find the whole concept intriguing.Jack Allen, professor at New Orleans Seminary and one of the respondents to my talk on the emerging church, takes to mocking me on my own site posting in the comments of this post:

Your Facebook dilemma will get worse. First, let's solve your "how to make friends on Facebook" problem. Facebook is intuitively simple. You click, stuff happens. Go into your profile and set everything to tell you everything when anything happens. Facebook claims that "You can change this later," but do not believe that. Anyway, once you've set to be "totally informed" anyone who asks you to be his or her friend will also send you an email that says something like "You have a friend request on Facebook," which means... more at http://s178065219.onlinehome.us/

Now, I get that, Jack. But, I have 100 friend requests to respond to and that makes me nervous. Perhaps that is my NYC upbringing, but do these people really want to be my friend? Or, are they going to rob me? Try to steal my car? Trick me into selling Amway? (OK, that is a little extreme... grin... but that is what my dad told me when I was a kid. Beware of people who want to be your friend.)

And, while I am at it, why do people keep poking me.

Jack's blog is here and he says I am only "sort of" on Facebook. Sigh. He even mocks my Facebook photo! With friends like Jack...

I am trying, Jack… I really am. But, what I need to figure out is what more I can do with Facebook. Having a few hundred friends on Facebook is great. However, I want to tie it into my blog and try to build some online community.

Well, I see I have used the word "emerging" in all four of these posts so I better stop now before I cause any more problems...

I am leading a Bible conference tomorrow and will write more soon...