Virginia Theological Seminary

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Comment by Steve Pankey on January 14, 2009 at 8:57am

Our 2021 community is based in John's Gospel - Jesus says to his disciples in 20:21 - "as the father has sent me, so I am sending you."

We are sent to homes, piers, bars, rescue missions, habitat build sites, etc. to do the work of the church incarnate.

Monthly we gather to worship on a pier or in a home and engage in the Apostle's teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayers.

Comment by Carrie Schofield-Broadbent on July 15, 2008 at 4:16am

So, what's the Emerging Buzz around VTS? I graduated in 2003 and serve a suburban parish in the Syracuse Ny area.

As a pretty standard upstate suburban parish, in some ways we couldn't be farther from the ultra cool things they're doing at COTA, Moot, etc., but we went to an Emerging Conference wiht Karen Ward and my parishioners left with the impression that we are emergent! (Which makes me smile on several levels -- like: Are you kidding me? and Maybe we're on to something!

We do contextual mission and experiment liturgically. (We're not out of the box when compared to emergent churches, but we're certainly branching out of our own comfort zone!)

We do a series of monthy community Eucharists -- totally inspired by my time at VTS, when we'd gather on a Wed. night to explore different forms of worship and to have an opportunity to enjoy God, worship, and one another. We even have a coffee hour after.

They've been really well received: Healing Service, Celtic, U2charist, Prayer & Praise, International, Mass on the Grass, etc. About half of the congregation is from our own St. Matthew's and the other half is from other local churches, the community, or friends of our folks. We're becoming a kind of "second spiritual home" for some.

So -- emerging (for us) inspiration from VTS....

I'd love to hear what you all are doing!

Carrie