Flourish: The Connector for the Creation Care Movement?

This week, Cross Pointe Church hosted the first annual Flourish Conference. As a small part of the Flourish staff, I can tell you that the conference exceeded our expectations in many ways. First, our speaker list was amazing: Joel Hunter, Margaret Feinberg, Gabe Lyons, Matthew Sleeth, and Andy Crouch to name a few. Second, the community being built was unprecedented. People were connecting with others to share ideas and partner on projects. Individuals who have felt alone on these issues were comforted that there are others like them out there. Finally, the coverage of the event was great. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Associated Baptist Press, and others had great things to say. My favorite post was from Christianity Today who called Flourish "Creation Care Without the Baggage." I couldn't agree more.

Flourish seems to be becoming what Malcolm Gladwell calls a "connector." This movement is in desperate need of a connector--an organization that can bring together like-minded people from various social, cultural, professional, and economic circles who might not otherwise meet. This facilitates conversations and partnerships that might not otherwise occur and can push a movement into the mainstream. Our hope is that we can do this for the creation care community. Our goal is not to promote Flourish, but to promote great people and organizations who are living out creation care principles all across the country.

We had several organizations at Flourish that we showcased during the conference. This week, I will be profiling one each day. Look for the first post tomorrow.

Q Ideas: A Great Blog from Gabe Lyons & Co.

Gabe Lyons is the founder of the Fermi Project and co-author of the groundbreaking book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity and Why it Matters. (Unfortunately, no wikipedia entry yet.) Gabe also heads up Q, a conference which gathers innovators, social entrepreneurs and cultural pioneers to have conversations that matter. Recently, Gabe's organization launched the Q Ideas blog, which has put together an uninterrupted line up of thought-provoking blog posts. Each post answers one of culture's most pressing questions.

I want to suggest a number of readworthy posts, beginning with one I posted:

1. What's the Shift in Young Evangelicals? by Jonathan Merritt, Me

2. Why Should We Be Listening to the Hip-Hop Language? by Jeff Johnson, Activist and BET Producer

3. Is Adoption Missional? by Johnny Carr, National Director of Church Partnerships for Bethany Christian Services

4. How Do We Serve Jesus Among the Poor? by Chris Heuertz, Director of Word Made Flesh and Author of Simple Spirituality

Check out a couple of the blog posts and let me know if anything strikes you as particularly inspiring.

unChristian

I am beginning to read perhaps the most important book of this year-

"unChistian: What a new generation thinks about Christianity . . . and why it matters" by Dave Kinnaman of Barna and Gabe Lyons of the Fermi Project. These men have done extensive research to reveal that while 10 years ago 4 out of 5 Americans had positive views of Christianity, today over 40% have negative opinions. What are their opinions? That we are anti-homosexual, judgmental, sheltered and care only about proselytizing and converting people--among other things.

Their words will be both alarming and convicting to you, I am sure.

I spoke with Gabe Lyons about his book, which he desribes as a book of hope, a solution rather than a problem. Not only does the book talk about the failings within our Christian sub-culture, it provides solutions for how to redeem even the very word "Christian" in the 21st century.

Additionally, the book pulls in advice from great minds like Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Margaret Feinberg, John Stott, Sarah Cunningham, Dan Kimball, Brian Mclaren and Mark Batterson. These pieces add real diversity and flavor to the message presented.

If you have read this book or have any thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.