What Happened in Virginia?

I'm sitting propped up in a wicker chair writing on my old G4 hooked into a big old monitor (the laptop screen is gone) with rain glistening on the grass and trees outside my window. Thunder grumbles halfheartedly above Moby playing in the living room. It's good to be home.

Christa and I went on a six mile walk today on old back roads and talked strategy: what's going on in our lives and what do we do about it? What opportunities face us? What challenges face us? What is priority?

It's been three weeks since the DSC mini-gathering in VA and I've been doing a lot of thinking about why it feels like a turning point for the DSC. What was going on? Exactly what happened in Virginia?

I'll talk about it from two angles. 1. Practically what we did, and 2. significant themes or surprises I think may have to do with this sense of change.

Practically:
Wednesday and Thursday people began trickling in. Joel from Texas. Bryn and Jordan from North Carolina. Justin from Three Hills. Later Kimberly, Troy, and Ken arrived (from IN and MI). Zac and Aneke from South Africa (via 3 Hills) and a number of Charlottesville Project people.

This is what we did:
We watched and discussed a documentary called "Jesus Camp".
We heard excerpts and discussed the book "The War of Art". Joel introduced this book about the battle with resistance we face moving towards what is meaningful, what we're called to.
We identified and talked about fears and dreams -- individual and corporate. Many fears were related to community, church and art.
Ken talked about missional church, theology and different ways of thinking about the church (contrasting a farm with fences with ranches where the cattle stay close because the water is there).
Sessions started with meditation (silence) and music -- hymns, a few worship songs, and original tunes.
Christa talked about meditation and learning from eastern traditions (and we discussed this).
We talked about and smelled essential oils (including myrrh and frankincense and other ancient substances -- thank you Troy).
We prayed together.
We went to the theatre and watched the Hulk 2 or the Happening.
We drank vitamin water, tea, beer, root beer and off-brand gatorade and ate a lot of wonderful food prepared and/or provided by Anita, Jonathan, Christa, Bryn, Joel and others.
We hung out and talked, played music, talked, talked, and talked. (Which was part of why the silence of meditation was so beautiful).

Themes and Surprises:
Generational Synergy: During this mini-conference I was called "old people" by one of the younger participants, and assured that "it was nothing to be ashamed of". And it isn't. It's actually exciting and a sign that the DSC is maturing, getting beyond a few friends sitting around talking about ideas. The DSC is 6 or 7 years old now. Those of us who started it are now in our mid 30s. The VA gathering had people with ages ranging between 17 and 40 something. This synergy between generations is key if we're going anywhere as a group.
Multi-community: Represented at this little gathering were 2 churches, 2 house churches, a microchurch and a mission outreach center. Everyone's varied experiences and understandings of community and church were helpful as we talked and prayed about being the body of Christ in new ways at a new time in history.
Host community: I think the fact that the Charlottesville Project has been up and running over two years now trying to embody the values and vision of the DSC helped create the setting for this gathering.
Technology: People understand blogs and have been on myspace and facebook long enough that when Justin got the DSC Ning site set up it took very little work for people to engage it. We've tried connecting online before, but before now the learning curve was high enough few people climbed it. Now it's normal and working.
Taking Ownership: For some reason at the end of this mini-conference almost everyone who was there volunteered to do something to move things forward for this group and the wider DSC. When people make that shift from "I wish someone would do something about this" to "what could I do?" everything changes...

It's almost dark now and a mouse just scurried across my desk -- a downside of being in a beautiful wooded area. Christa and Megan are talking about art in the next room. I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Jonathan