Midwest Emergent Gathering Blog

Welcome to the Midwest Emergent Gathering Blog. This is a place to tell stories, get conference updates, and connect with others who are attending. You can use this blog to ask questions, arrange to share rides and rooms, and start to get to know each other.

If you haven't registered for the conference yet - click here.


What is the Midwest Emergent Gathering?

A church of 10,000 people that meets in a mall...
A small urban community that meets in an art gallery...
An African-American church on the south-side of Chicago...
Web communities that connect tens of thousands of people...

What do all of these have in common? They are all emerging faith communities discovering what it means to be missional in their own unique context. AND they will all be represented at the first annual Midwest Emergent Gathering, July 20-21 in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. Come learn from Tony Jones (Emergent Village), Denise Van Eck (Mars Hill Bible Church), Spencer Burke (theOoze.com), Nanette Sawyer (Wicker Park Grace), Doug Pagitt (Solomon's Porch), and Alise Barrymore & James King (The Emmaus Community) and many other missional practitioners from a wide diversity of backgrounds as we learn together about "Creating Missional Communities".

Contribute to the conversation as we discuss, network, and learn in community together via fast-paced mainstage sessions, interactive workshops, and unstructured times for dialogue with old or new friends. Whether mainline or evangelical, emerging or traditional, high church or de-churched, you will find inspiration and ideas to help you and your faith community become more effective agents for the mission of God in this hurting world.


Who is the Midwest Emergent Gathering for??

It's for anyone who wants to discover how to create a missional faith community, or how to transition their existing community into a more missional mindset. This isn't just about churches or just for pastors. A missional community could be an emergent cohort, or a group of friends who live in the same neighborhood and want to make difference right where they live - we're even inviting a number of speakers who have disengaged entirely from the institutional church and yet continue to create missional community by gathering friends for backyard barbecues and serving food to the homeless on weekends.

You don't even have to be especially emergent to attend. Missional is a much broader term than emerging, and we've invited speakers from a wide spectrum of belief and practice. All you need is a conviction that the church is at its best when it's giving itself away, and a desire to learn how to do that better in your own context.


I look forward to seeing everyone there!