February 24, 2003

Emerging Church Network reaches wider
___By John Hall
___Texas Baptist Communications
___The Emerging Church Network--an effort to connect people ministering to unreached niche cultures--has expanded to include missionaries around the world.
___The group, partially funded through the Baptist General Convention of Texas Church Starting Center, identifies and trains leaders to start church-planting movements that will minister to unreached cultures throughout Texas.
___Emerging cultures these strategists are trying to penetrate include environmental activists, young intellectuals, "Sex in the City" partiers and artsy Bohemians, said John Berryhill, a member of the network's director team.
___The network currently funds eight strategists in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, but it has developed relationships with ministers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Ethiopia and Indonesia, as well as throughout Europe.
___Strategists are facing an "unprecedented shift in global culture" and are challenged to invent new methods to evangelize unchurched people groups, Berryhill said. Ministers desire to communicate with each other to spread ideas that are working and to encourage the effort to reach people, he said.
___Strategists meet at conferences and through mutual friends and discuss their work. "They are connecting out of a sense of mission," Berryhill said.
___Although the global culture is changing, the church has responded in varying degrees, said Shannon Hopkins, also a member of the director team.
___"It's a worldwide phenomenon," she said. "Where people are recognizing the effect of post-modernity is where the church has lost ground. There are some places that are responding quicker. Honestly, I think Texas is up there in responding and trying to gain back ground."
___Many of the strategies used by the network focus on individual relationships where missionaries intentionally penetrate the culture to be the presence of Christ. Through these associations, strategists hope they can share with a person and train them also to reach out to their culture in a similar manner.
___Field workers form these relationships in different ways, including being a member of an interfaith book club, spending time at coffee shops and bars and playing in a band on Sixth Street in Austin, an area known for its nightlife.
___"We're not looking to grow tall," Berryhill said. "We're looking to grow wide."
___Strategists from around the globe are slated to discuss evangelism techniques and brainstorm new methods of outreach during the wabiSABI Conference in Austin March 28-30.
___The conference is designed around the Japanese concepts of "wabi" and "sabi," the new and the old, Hopkins said. While the young are fresh, the older are wiser. Both groups must dialogue for progress to occur, she said.
___In addition to breakout sessions, participants have the option to prayerwalk around the city or visit different emerging cultures in Austin.
___For more information about the conference, contact Sharon Cofield at s_cofield@bgct.org or (214) 828-5375.

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