monastic church

as many of you know i've been following the *emergent church* movement in various online venues for a bit now -- i'm intrigued and more than a little excited by the movement ....

(though i do, of course, have reservations, hesitations and questions)

but the idea of a monastic model as being complementary to an ecclesiastic model is pretty exciting to me.

exciting why?

well:

A.) it's sorta more compatible with the way i want to be invested in higher education (particularly, in my case, "christian" higher education...)

B.) its pretty descriptive of the ways in which i have most profoundly experienced church -- particularly if you think of these monastic models as cells -- in the ways that my friend kevin rains writes about. (I do understand that I'm taking liberties with the concept of monastic living here -- by stretching it to include communal living...but using the notions of residual and emergent...it seems like its the vows and the depth and the size and the intention that is the resource-giving residue and the small-pieces-loosely-joined-structure that gives us the grammar to imagine new incarnations of these profound truths...)

C.) it seems a better way to address some of the pressing questions around how the church handles vocation which i was blogging about so much this summer -- and am always thinking about a great deal...

oh and BTW, Daniel, this bit of reading, i think, defines your ideas for your house of preparation beautifully.

man, i gotta get back to grading!

leaving for miami in 27 hours...

peace~