Greetings from Belfast, Northern Ireland! I arrived Thursday morning at 8AM after an overnight flight jet lagged but excited to meet and participate in the conversations centered around the idea of Dangerous Living. How do we form intentional communities dedicated not only to the idea of Christianity but the living out of lives that have already been claimed by Christ. If we are no longer to fear death, what does that imply for our lives as individual Christians in community with each other?
The conversations today took place at the East Belfast Mission, a mission under the umbrella of the Methodist Church that is a robust and exciting presence in a, still, depressed part of Belfast. I took part in group discussion led by Andrew Jones and then Pete Rollins, two of the guys I came here to meet. We spent the first hour talking about “Does God have a plan for my life?” led by Jones, and then Pete led us through his quick thoughts related to his book, reviewed on this site, and then we talked about the Ikon community in particular and there was some intense debate on if Ikon is even a part of the Emerging Church or if it is even on the edge of that community.
I’m off to bed now to sleep off this jet-lag and then off to Portrush on the north shore for the weekend to continue the conversation. I am excited about the prospects and implications of these conversations and relationships as they relate to the U.S. and my desire to see the emerging conversation move away from debate about worship style to a deeper expression of what an emerging community of Christians could look like on my own turf.
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