I assume most emerging folks have heard by now that the Glorietta Emergent Gathering as it has been will no longer be occurring (more info here). It’s apparently grown too organized, too structured, too different than what it once was. Given those changes the organizers are shutting it down to make room for other sorts of gatherings/events. While I understand the rationale behind the decision, I find it a bit sad. Granted I was never part of the early days of the Gathering. As hard as I tried to make it in earlier years, I was only able to attend the past two Gatherings. So apparently all I saw was the more structured, on-ramp for the newbies sort of event. And I guess I was one of those newbies trying to find my place and my voice in this conversation. I got to hear the reminisces of the “good old days” and the complaints about how things have changed, but I also seriously appreciated what I experienced. And personally I’m going to miss that.
We are being encouraged instead to seek out local events or to put them on ourselves as alternatives to the Gathering. On one hard this is a great idea. Finding others in one’s area to meet with and provide encouragement to through things like cohorts is a wonderful thing. And having put on a few local emerging conferences, I know the value of those events as well. Those are times for like-minded people bound by geography to find each other. I’ve had fun at these events and have been blessed by the people I encounter there. Sometimes these things develop into ongoing community, sometimes they don’t. As we’ve discovered with the Chicago cohort, we have an email list of over 300 contacts, but rarely see more than a dozen at any given gathering. Often people show up once or twice, attend the big events with the big name speakers, ask to be part of the network, affirm that they aren’t crazy for asking these questions, and then never plug into community. It meets a need, often a very vital need in their faith journey, but lacks a certain something for those of us committed to the emergent community for the long haul.
While I have met some wonderful people though the local events, cohorts, and conferences, I still find that most of my emerging interactions occur online. My community is scattered across the states (and the world). There are members of this community who I have only met at the big trans-regional events like the Gathering. So while I still love the idea of and will continue to help organize regional events (yes I am think of a Texas Emerging Women gathering soon), I’m going to miss the opportunity to connect with the larger emergent family. And while the idea of a National EV Conference is appealing, I doubt it will be as open-source, fun, and inexpensive as the Gathering. I doubt we will see whole families there or have the chance to cook meals together. So I’m going to miss the family reunion/pilgrimage that was the Gathering. And I’m curious how it’s absence will affect the nature of the conversation – will it truly spark more grass-roots conversations or will everything just default towards more and more structure? In other words, how can the spirit of the Gathering be maintained without the Gathering itself actually existing?