the national pastors convention is in san diego this week. this used to be a YS event, until this year, when we decided to refocus on youth ministry alone, and gave it to our partners, zondervan. but since zondervan has never run an event before, we’re helping to facilitate it — which means our reg dept did all the reg, tic planned most of the event (and is mc’ing the general sessions), and about 10 of our staff are helping to run it onsite. i have zero responsibilities there, but dropped by yesterday to reconnect with YS staff and see people. there’s a very cool emergent track, including an emerging church critical concerns course being lead by an amazing and varied panel of speakers: tony jones (moderating), doug pagitt, dan kimball, leron shults, scot mcknight, ryan bolger, and . i wish i’d planned to attend it. it also made me a bit misty-eyed, realizing how much i miss the emergent convention, which would have been (in the past few years) running concurrent with the NPC right here and now. it was good to see doug, tony and dan, as well as other friends. i’m looking forward to having them over to my house (along with chris seay, who comes in today) for a bit of hot-tubbing on friday night. i’m taking scot mcknight to lunch today, which i’m pumped about — i learn so much from his blog.
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Say hello for me to all of them. Tell LeRon I’m reading a couple of his books. Miss Tony and Dan (and you)and using Ryan’s blog to help me plan for a course I’m co-teaching in seminary. I got John’s book too. As for Doug, hope is foot is better. And prof. Scot always keeping me on track
Comment by Sivin 02.22.06 @ 12:15 pmjennifer — darn good question. i sure noticed that, too. you’re right, i had nothing to do with it this year. one thing the presenters in that CCC had in common (other than being white males) is that they’re all published authors. there are almost no female published authors who are leaders in the EC movement (ivy beckwith would be an acception, but her book is on children’s ministry). another thing i noticed is that there were only about 3 women in the audience, out of about 200 people — which was NOT reflective of the general crowd at the NPC. oh, and BTW, having it be all men wouldn’t make it “more palatable” to the NPC crowd — there are a good bunch of female presenters at the event also, and good bunch of female attendees (certainly not as high a percentage as there is at our youth workers convention, or as there was at the emergent convention). and, no, the women at NPC aren’t all pastor’s wives! :o)
bottom line guess: i think it just didn’t register as the high value this time around as it did for us with the emergent convention — we were very intentional about that, which created TONS of extra work! and since i had nothing to do with it (and don’t know), it’s very possible they tried hard to invite women for that panel — considering the lengths i had to go to to get the women we had at the emergent convention, i wouldn’t be surprised.
Comment by marko 02.22.06 @ 9:12 pmMark,
I appreciate your response! I know you are aware of all these issues.
Jennifer
Comment by Jennifer 02.23.06 @ 3:06 pmsounds like you are jumping back into stuff with lots of energy
Comment by Clint Walker 02.24.06 @ 6:50 pmLeave a comment
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I’m glad there is at least an emergent track at the NPC, but c’mon….it’s led by all males?!? (and all *white* males, I think).
I know you were not in charge of this, but maybe you know…was that done on purpose to make it more palatable for the NPC crowd instead of the emergent crowd? The guys that are leading are great, but how can anyone talk about emergent stuff without including a variety of voices? How is that *emergent*?
Comment by Jennifer 02.22.06 @ 12:04 pm