and

My friend Jim Henderson together with the collaborative team at Off-the-Map are gearing up for a national conversation happening in Seattle, in early November. This year’s theme is Hear·Listen·Connect.Presenters include Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, Richard Twiss, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, and Todd Hunter and many others, I’ll even get to facilitate a workshop.

My working title for my workshop is:

Orthoparadoxy: embracing the gifts of sin, heresy, and ‘the other’

or

At-One-Ment:  re-imagining ‘a good Christian’

I offered a brief outline of what I mean by “orthoparadoxy” in the new book, Emergent Manifesto of Hope. But I want this workshop to be a practical exploration of how embracing “otherness” is in fact what faithfully walking in the way of Christ is like. We will look at a bit of the theology that undergirds this gracious, Christ-like way of being but mostly we will stretch our connective imaginations for embodying an Orthoparadox way of being.

For those of you who have been redirected to my personal site from Hear·Listen·Connect I thought I’d offer a bit of biographical info:

I teach practical theology at Mars Hill Graduate School and for more than 11 pastored an emerging simple church on Seattle’s eastside. I am active in interfaith and ecumenical conversation; currently serving on the “Faith & Order Commission” of the National Council of Churches. I am active locally, nationally and internationally with missional and emerging church movements. My wife Lynette and our son Pascal live in Bellevue, Washington.

I hope to see you at this conversation.

Peace, dwight