Origins…beginning the network/communty

dan posted on April 22, 2009

I am down in Orange County and was in an all day meeting about the new network/community. We had a meeting with those from the teams helping lead and shape the network who are here for the Origins/Catalyst conference. There’s so much to share about what is being birthed and we’ll be defining some of the terminology and purposes more clearly and in depth in the months ahead. This network is for those who are passionate about about Jesus and the inspired Scriptures, Humanity (evangelism and mission) and Innovation and wanting to be joining in with others as we are on this adventure.

But, from today’s meeting there are a couple of updates:

1) After all the wonderful ideas, input and suggestions about name ideas we decided to use “Origins” as the name of the network. More on the name later and why, but that is the scoop on the name and for those that contributed ideas, thank you!

2) Although this will be a community, any community does need leadership. The Creative Team is now formed and they are the leaders who will be voices to shape and help lead the network.

Erwin McManus and Eric Bryant from Mosaic – Dave Gibbons and John Park from Newsong Church – and myself and Josh Fox from Vintage Faith Church have been the Core developers and the Creative Team for this network will be:

Mark Batterson – Amena Brown – Adam Edgerly – Naeem Fazal – Margaret Feinberg – Skye Jethani – Bryan Loritts – Rick McKinley  - Scot McKnight  - Jeanne Stevens

You can go here and see the leadership page which has the Creative Team and links to each person’s blog or church or organization so you can read more about them.

We are still developing the Connecting Team so some of the names are on the web site and there will be others listed soon. What these roles are and what that means will also be defined more soon too. Although leadership and structure is needed for something like this, we are passionate that this is going to be a bottom-up type of community with as many people as possible helping shape, give voice and be as grass-roots as possible while making sure that the grass grows healthy and has roots. This really is going to be a collaborative community so we are setting up to hear from you as you want to contribute and be a voice in this.

3) You can become part of things now and help shape the future. John from Newsong Church has been so gracious in getting part of the web site to be a social network where people will be connecting, giving input, sharing ideas. We eventually will have regional gatherings and connections as well but for now you can:

- go to the “Sign Up” page for monthly email updates which will be email updates about vision, development, events and gatherings and podcasts.

- go to the “Community” page where a social network site is set up and you can sign up to be on that community.  I just saw that people already are posting photos and videos, so this will be a community site that will be developed to interact and contribute to.

We will be launching a blog on the site, more interview videos with posting updates all during the week, various articles and ministry highlights of people in missional ministry.

We will be announcing some events as well which we spent some really great time talking about how do we create events that are not just presentational events but ones which are community and ideas oriented. So many great things we talked about and as many great things that we talked about about 100 more questions came up. But that is part of the adventure of all this.

More soon, but that’s a quick update and for those interested in this, sign up for the emails and the community and you will learn how to be a part and be giving input and ideas and more. If you have any questions or input feel free to post them.

This isn’t just for pastors or church leaders  - it is for anyone who has a passion for Jesus, Humanity and Innovation as it moves us towards the mission of Jesus.

cross-posted from Dan’s blog