The 2008 Church of the Brethren Annual Conference is now over half-way towards its completion. Today brought the first official business sessions of the gathered body, which went relatively smoothly. We also received the exciting news today that conference registrations now total over 6,000, and that our joint worship service with the Brethren Church was attended by over 5,000 people! Wow.
I’ve uploaded a few more photos to my AC Facebook album, sorry Flickr folks I haven’t sent any your way. I’m going to try to get some better (non-camera phone) pics to upload soon. Also, if you’re interested in more general reports of what is happening here at Conference, along with some more pictures, be sure to check out the official Annual Conference news page which is updated every evening.
One part of Annual Conference is the numerous insight sessions that take place on various topics of interest. I enjoyed going to a couple such insight sessions today, titled “Sharing the Good News Within and Beyond our Communities of Faith” and “Engaging our Communities with Jesus.” However one of my favorite events today was an opportunity tonight for those of us who are interested in the emergent church conversation to get together for our own conversation.
This was a special opportunity for me to sit down with people from across the country who are interested in some of the same trains of thought that I am interested in. I read many blogs that deal with the emergent church and I’ve really enjoyed reading the Emergent Brethren blog over the last several months. After tonight I’m going to try much harder to become a regular part of that online community as we work together to see what the emerging church looks like in our various Brethren contexts.
I’ve also purchased a stack of books (many of which are emergent or missionally oriented) and I hope to review some of them here in the coming months. I really do think that the emergent / missional conversation and movement is where the church is headed in order to be relevant and authentic in our society and culture. I see many ways in which the Church of the Brethren, both historically and currently, resonates with this supposedly “new” movement. Expect to hear more from me about this in the future!
One last note about my dining adventures while here in Richmond - last night we ate at the Strawberry Street Cafe and it was wonderful. It’s located in an area of Richmond near Monument Ave. known as “the fan” and has been a favorite eatery there for the last 30 years. Since I normally live quite a bit farther from the sea I took the opportunity to sample some of their crab-based dishes (crab soup, crab quiche, and crab cakes) and they were all splendid. I also got to taste some of their other offerings, all of which were quite good as well. I would definitely recommend it as a nice locally-owned place to check out if you ever happen to find yourself in Richmond, VA!
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