the e-church

There is a body, a growing body of people that have grown disenchanted with the church. They have grown tired of church as usual. We have grown tired of church politics, church folk and messages that do not speak to their condition. We know that the prayers of the righteous prevail much. We not only read our Bible faithfully, we are activist minded. We are what Shawn Clairborne calls "ordinary radicals." We know that what happens in the Kenya affects what happens on King Blvd. We concur with Thomas Friedman as he echoed Christopher Columbus's sentiment that "The World is Flat."
We are highly educated both formally and informally. We've read Derrida, Diop, hooks, Karenga as we as Brueggeman, Yaconelli and TS Elliot. We read the NY Times as well as US News and World Report. Cornel West and Naomi Klein are no strangers to us. We are rooted in our history and culture, but we are not afraid to engage our cultures and histories.
We drink lattes, espressos and mochas trying to squeeze more time in the day so that we can write one more paragraph, negotiate one more contract or broker one more deal. We have many of the material trappings of the world, but over time we've learned that these things are "of this world" and they don't make us or give us meaning.
We have alternative faiths, but there is something about the faith of our grandparents that keeps drawing us back to the traditional church only to leave frustrated and empty. We are what Tony Jones calls "The New Christians." We toil in anticipation of the risen Christ. We long to empower our communities, the ones that we all grew up in, with the knowledge that we learned "in the world." We are forming neo-communities that are not only rooted in prayer and activism, but a new mysticism that boldly proclaims, "to live is Christ and to die is gain." We are Red Letter Christians, Pink Letter Christians, Green Letter Christians and Rainbow Christians. We are longing for "fresh manna," we are looking for a new dispensation of the Holy Spirit and we long for the formation of an E-Church.