An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

The Concreteness of Writing

By Adam Walker Cleaveland

Adam Walker Cleaveland is an M.Div./M.A. (Youth Ministry) student at Princeton Theological Seminary (will graduate in 2008), blogs regularly at pomomusings.com and does web and graphic design at cleavedesign.com. Adam and his wife Sarah currently live in Decatur, GA and Adam can be contacted at cleave@gmail.com.

I have to be honest; I've I’ve always wanted to write a book. Other than the numerous books I used to write and illustrate for our local county Young Authors’ Conferences, being able to be a part of this writing project is the closest I’ve come to actually writing a book. I’ve got a chapter. And and that feels pretty cool. However, as soon as I finished my chapter, “Presbymergent: The Story of One Mainliner’s Quest to be a Loyal Radical,” I experienced an odd emotion: fear.

The words were now going to be in print— they were going to actually be printed and people were going to read them, and, most likely, some would critique them. I think, perhaps, these are the thoughts of many first-time authors: what if someone doesn’t like my chapter? What if someone blogs(!) about how they don’t like my chapter? But most importantly, what happens if I change my mind?
That was what worried me most, and still does to some degree. What happens if I change my mind? What happens if I don't don’t want to be a loyal radical anymore? What happens if I get fed up with the mainline church and decide I don’t want to be a part of a denomination? I’m currently still in the PCUSA ordination process, and I don’t see anything changing that, but that was something I have been thinking about.

What does it mean to write something that I can’t change? I can go back and edit a post on my blog, but the printed word...that seems so much more concrete, more permanent. However, I do have faith that those who read my chapter...all of our chapters, will share our belief that we are all on a journey — and I'm confident my journey will take me to many places I can’t even imagine right now. If that means I’ll continue to pursue a call in a mainline PCUSA church — wonderful. If God calls me in a new and different direction — I have to honor that as well, whether or not I wrote in a chapter of a book once that I wanted to remain a 'loyal radical.'

Presbymergent.org

Adam Walker Cleaveland is an M.Div./M.A. (Youth Ministry) student at Princeton Theological Seminary (will graduate in 2008), blogs regularly at pomomusings.com and does web and graphic design at cleavedesign.com. Adam and his wife Sarah currently live in Decatur, GA and Adam can be contacted at cleave@gmail.com.

I had the privilege to participate in the Mainline Emergent/ s event that was held at Columbia Theological Seminary back in January. During that event, we talked about the ways in which the emergent  conversation was and is happening in mainline denominations. I think it was quite eye-opening for some who think of emergent only as a conversation happening among evangelicals.
During the conference, I led a workshop along with fellow An Emergent Manifesto of Hope Contributor contributor Karen Sloan. Our workshop was entitled “Practice & Presbyterianism: Emergence as Reformation.” We had over 80 Presbyterians come to our seminar to talk about how Presbyterians might enter into the emergent conversation. A few days earlier, I had launched Presbymergent.org. This is how we describe the site:
“Presbymergent is the online community for those who live in both the Presbyterian (PCUSA) and emergent/emerging church worlds and want to try and find a balance between the two. We are pastors, lay people, seminarians, theologians, youth directors, and people who generally care about both the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the emergent conversation.”
It’s amazing the response we had within the first week of having the website live. In one week, the site received over 1500 unique hits, had over 22 posts with 100 comments, and 50 people signed up as Contributors to post content to the site. Not a bad initial response. We hope the place does continues to spur on conversation with those in the PC(USA) and emergent. If you are connected to a PC(USA) church or community and want to engage the emergent conversation, please do check out Presbymergent.org.
Peace,
Adam Walker Cleaveland